Will You Have a Little Romance with That?

just a sip, thank you

In a newsletter last year, I wrote about fight scenes. I still owe you a post on sex in crime novels but I’ll keep that one for the warm-up ahead of Catch Me on a Blue Day, the next Declan Shaw mystery that comes out in the fall. Considering what’s going on in that book, it will be topical. (And if that doesn’t catch your attention … 😍)

In the meantime, here’s a taste of romance.

I chatted with Nick Kolakowski last week to prepare for the interview that will be published on April 10, and he said something that got me thinking. We were talking about the relationship between the two main characters in his new book, Where the Bones Lie. Nick said: “Everyone remembers how The X-Files went to crap when Mulder and Scully finally got together.”

I do remember, and it wasn’t the first time in TV history that hitting the pillow proved fatal. Some of you might remember Moonlighting, that delicious detective show with Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis (before Yippee-Ki-Yay). It ran between 85’ and 89’, and cratered soon after the two main characters tumbled into bed. Boom, Kryptonite.

Viewers love the tickle of sexual tension. The problem is that you can’t keep it going forever without the whole thing turning silly. There comes a moment when something’s gotta give, and we all know that And they lived happily ever after comes just before The End.

The problem is similar in book series.
Crime writers who plan to develop their main character over multiple episodes are understandably skittish about emotional entanglements. Many choose the radical way out, and scratch romance entirely.

(Warning: I don’t read cosy mysteries, so I won’t consider them, and I only looked at guys in detective series. This is far from a complete run-down.)

Part 1 - The Cautious Avoiders
Sherlock Holmes has one brief encounter with Irene Adler in A Scandal in Bohemia, and that’s it, she’s not seen ever again. Hercule Poirot is too busy being a massive show-off egocentric fussbudget to pay any attention to women, unless they kill or are killed. Perry Mason and Della Street are all about work (the old TV show has more sizzle between them than the books). Wallander is a sad sack, divorced, with a couple of failed relationships on his resume, and who would want to stick around him anyway. Lew Archer also has an ex-wife, occasionally mentioned, almost as an aside. Jules Maigret, Simenon’s top cop, is happily married but his wife rarely sees him. She’d be better off with a sailor.

Part 2 - The Serial Opportunists
The fellows who take a hike when things threaten to become “serious”. The ones that can’t commit for more than a few days. Say emotional involvement and they’re out of the door lickety-split. Philip Marlowe is a prime example. There are women but they get filed away when the case is closed. Interestingly, Marlowe shows signs of thawing in Playback, the last completed novel of the series. At the beginning of the unfinished Poodle Springs, he’s actually married. Where that would have gone, we’ll never know. Travis McGee fishes with the same bucket. In the last book of the series The Lonely Silver Rain, we learn that he has a daughter, from a love affair that mattered to him. Mind you, the woman is dead. The last book of the series, again. Is there a pattern here?

Part 3 - Let’s Get Hitched
All right, it isn’t entirely bleak. Some writers are not afraid of domesticating their characters. Take James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux. He’s the marrying kind. I’m not reading the books in order so I’ve lost track of how many times he’s said I do. The problem is that Dave is as dangerous for his wives as James Bond is for his girlfriends. On the other hand, Dave is a devoted father. The girl regularly gets in sticky situations and he has to leap to the rescue.

Part 4 - The Steady Regulars
I know two series—I’m sure there are more—that handle romance with humor and a light touch, without losing plot and focus. Quite a balancing act. Robert B. Parker’s Spenser works cases while maintaining a solid relationship with psychologist Susan Silverman. She helps occasionally, and Spenser, that big bear, values her insights. Agatha Christie also hits the right funny/cute notes with Tommy and Tuppence. The two are together for the long run. Meeting in their twenties in London in 1920, and still investigating in their seventies in 1973, raising three kids in the process. Dame Agatha proves it can be done.

Part n - But what about Declan Shaw?
I haven’t (completely) decided yet. He’s restless and easily bored, not against settling down but the bar is high. Daisy Diamond, the Miami PI and occasional girlfriend, has similar tendencies. They get on each other’s nerves after a while, and will have to work something out, eventually. Daisy does not appear in Catch Me on a Blue Day. It isn’t an issue because the book is set in Connecticut, with a different cast of characters, and takes place before Love You Till Tuesday—ten months earlier to be precise. As to what happens after that in the series … I know, but it’s way too early to tell you about it.

Photo: M.E. Proctor

Publication and Other News

Back Seat Surprise was published by Bull Fiction Magazine – you can read it online here. It features Max, one of my recurrent characters. Max is a hitman and this story will seriously disrupt his life. Talking about emotional entanglements …

Max didn’t care much for the poke in his heart when he looked at the boy, or the moisture in the corner of his eyes, or the hitch in his breathing, as if inhaling was a disturbance. There were no innocents in Max’s universe, only wolves and what they fed on.

In other exciting news, Drop Dead Gorgeous (published in the Janie’s Got a Gun anthology, Michael Bracken editor) has been selected to appear in The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2025. I’m honored! I’ll share the book cover as soon as I have it.

Note for Bouchercon attendees: Love You Till Tuesday, is eligible for Best Paperback/eBook. It would be so cool if you could put it on your ballot. If you went to Bouchercon last year or are going this year, you’ll get a ballot and you can nominate ….