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Jim Butcher once said that he modeled Harry Dresden on the hardboiled detectives of Mystery's Golden Age--guys who had two common traits: they got the snot beaten out of them regularly; and they knew how to cut up with the quips--to "lip off" as Mr. Butcher put it. I know who those guys are--guys like Sam Spade and Nick Charles and Philip Marlowe. I like those guys too, but I have to admit that one of my favorite detectives is not a tough guy who gets knocked around and bounces back or is quick with a smart-mouthed comment. He's the invisible man, the transparent lens through whose eyes the story and its setting is shown to the reader, but who is not, in fact, a motivator of the events. He's Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer, a man for whom detection is neither an exercise of ego, nor an unpleasant delivery from Circumstances R Us. It's just a job.

Even though a collection of Lew Archer short stories has been released recently, Lew doesn't get much play these days. He's the pure Mystery fiend's detective, as far removed from the quirky, fast-talking, idiosyncratic anti-hero of Hammett and Chandler as glass is from grits. He's not flashy, he's not charming, he's deceptively plain and quiet--an observer whose life is not meant for display. He's the detective Harper Blaine would most like to emulate and whom she simply cannot. But why not?