When working with an established literary subgenre like the detective/ mystery novel, the conventions established by illustrious predecessors demand respect but not subservience. If an author understands the tradition he works in, invention as a form of respect and homage can be combined with self-reflexive commentary that may edge toward affectionate parody. The primary sources of Kotzwinkle's text are the so-called "hard-boiled" school of writers like Horace McCoy and Dashiell Hammett of the 1930s and writers like Raymond Chandler in the 1940s, augmented by the code-hero of Hemingway's best novels and short stories. They depicted a man who was capable of action when necessary, loyalty, personal integrity and self-sacri-fice, and who operated in a world becoming a moral vacuum. Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes and Watson are the archetypal pair Kotzwinkle uses as a ground for elaboration, and Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock (1946) provides a basic scheme...