Like all good storytelling, hard-boiled stories revolve around the characters. This is largely because the detective is neither Sherlock Holmes nor a CSI. Forensic evidence is seldom the clincher in his cases. He solves the mystery by talking to people, lots of them, and they’re all lying. He does the legwork, collecting a boatload of facts, hoping that eventually he’ll see a pattern or turn up a clue. Everything hinges on the motives and personalities of the cast. For this kind of writing to work, all the people in a story must be well rounded and fully developed. They all have their flaws, and most have a spark of decency too. Surely that much is the same no matter race, color or creed. Except that, just because Hannibal’s skin is dark, some people are more likely to open up to him while others will refuse to speak to him, or will lie to him out of pure spite. If my writing is honest, I have to take into account that human motivations really do vary based on race. The basics are the same – love, hate, greed, jealousy. But race adds the elements of prejudice, fear of the establishment, distrust of those who are different, and blind faith in total strangers based on traits in common. A racially diverse cast really does complicate the puzzles I build, and I have to admit that I love having those additional hues on my mystery-writing pallet. How does race complicate things?

Of course, the most important defining characteristic of hardboiled detective fiction is the detective himself. He knows there’s a job to do, and he’s the only one who can get it done. He may be a tough guy, but he knows what’s right and wrong. He’s on a quest for the truth, or justice, or simply against the evil of the world. He has a clearly defined moral code, even if it’s only clear to him. He may shoot a man in cold blood, but he’ll never park in a handicap space, dishonor a lady or turn his back on a person in real trouble. Like most of his peers, Hannibal is not well-off financially, because in his world, being moral doesn’t pay very well. But how did our hero get to be this impoverished paragon? Surely his personal history shaped his character. The fact that Hannibal is a black man in a white man’s world shapes him just as much as the fact that he was raised by his mother after his father died in Vietnam and has little feel for the hip hop, red-black-and-green, whitey-distrusting culture of his neighbors. Hardboiled detectives are always outsiders, but in the case of black detectives it’s easy to understand why. White clients may expect them to have a hidden, anti-white agenda. Other African Americans, distrustful of authority figures in general, sometimes have a special resentment of black men who question them or try to associate them with crimes.

Okay, one thing must be the same across all hardboiled detectives - his style. It’s his air of relaxed confidence, whether he’s talking to a Rockefeller or a Capone, and the deadpan wit that’s so dry it crackles. So when the dame says, "Tall, aren’t you?" Marlowe doesn’t say "Yeah," or "So what?" but rather... "I didn’t mean to be." Hannibal might respond the same way if someone mentioned that he’s black. When a client’s butler calls him a colorful character he says, “I’m just me. You’re the guy that’s colorful.” And he recognizes the shade of difference between just being a P.I. and being a black one. So, when asked what kind of detective he is in Damaged Goods he quips, “I’m like the illegitimate child of Spenser and Hawk, if it was possible for them to do such a thing.”

Ultimately, the reader identifies with the hero of these stories, which are most often written in first person. You have the detective’s point of view. For him to be accessible to his audience his viewpoint, attitudes and feelings must be true. This is especially important for a black detective because those who would most naturally identify with him have been largely disenfranchised in this regard. It’s a lot easier for an African American to identify with Hawk than Spenser, but the choice of blacks in detective fiction is still disturbingly narrow.

So maybe, in a way it is about race. Because it’s about the characters more than it’s about the mystery.

Austin S. Camacho is the author of four detective novels in the Hannibal Jones series - Blood and Bone, Collateral Damage, The Troubleshooter, and Damaged. Camacho is active in several writers’ organizations and teaches writing at Anne Arundel Community College. After a career as a military news reporter, Camacho is now a public affairs specialist for the Defense Department. Camacho lives in Springfield, Virginia with his lovely wife Denise and Princess the Wonder Cat.