Gonzo Eyes
“I wouldn’t recommend drugs, alcohol and firearms as a way of life for anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
— Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
When the pedal hits the metal, when the yeggs hit the pan, when neo-noir’s soft-muted jazzbo soundtracks warbling behind shadow-shrouded mean streets just don’t get your motor running, and no ordinary eye will do, who ya gonna call?
Outlandish characters, lots of sex, drugs and weaponry, both legal and illegal, rednecks and other good ol’ boys, looney tunes and some real humdinger plot twists, all set to a rock’n’roll attitude set to, well, at least one louder…
The lineage can probably be traced back to Jonathan Latimer, Norbert Davis, Richard Prather and, more recently, Elmore Leonard, but this new breed of guys (and they all seem to be mostly guys) crank it up several notches. Mostly played for laughs, but sometimes aiming for something darker and more pointed, the road is rarely (ie: never) straight…
This is a sub-genre that never quite goes away.
- Jack “Baddle Ax” Baddalach by Norman Partridge
- Hap Collins & Leonard Pine by Joe R. Lansdale
- Milo Milodragovitch and C.W. Sughrue by James Crumley
- Marty Burns by Jay S. Russell
- The Florida Novels by Carl Hiaasen
- Pete Amsterdam (and the rest of the Key West series) by Laurence Shames
- Mortimer Angel
- Mike Valentine (Florida Man)
- Serge Storms by Tim Dorsey (not really a P.I.; more of a self-appointed vigilante)
Preliminary list respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks, Duke.
