2 thoughts on “In The Spotlight: Linda Coles’ Tin Men”
I quite like the idea of the police being left out – it feels more credible than some amateur ‘tecs who miraculously solve a crime when the police are baffled. That works in vintage crime but for some reason not in contemporary crime, for me, at least. And her background in intelligence gives some credibility to the idea that she’d know how to go about investigating.
I thought that aspect of the book was handled well, FictionFan. As you say, when there’s an amateur detective in a story, sometimes the police do look bumbling, and that gets tiresome – it really does. Funny you’d make that comparison between vintage and contemporary crime fiction. Somehow the inept police detective can work in the former, but not in the latter. As for the intelligence background, that does add an interesting layer to the character. Chrissy doesn’t say much about her intelligence experiences, although they pop up from time to time. It makes her a more layered person, I think.
Crime Writer Margot Kinberg 
I quite like the idea of the police being left out – it feels more credible than some amateur ‘tecs who miraculously solve a crime when the police are baffled. That works in vintage crime but for some reason not in contemporary crime, for me, at least. And her background in intelligence gives some credibility to the idea that she’d know how to go about investigating.
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I thought that aspect of the book was handled well, FictionFan. As you say, when there’s an amateur detective in a story, sometimes the police do look bumbling, and that gets tiresome – it really does. Funny you’d make that comparison between vintage and contemporary crime fiction. Somehow the inept police detective can work in the former, but not in the latter. As for the intelligence background, that does add an interesting layer to the character. Chrissy doesn’t say much about her intelligence experiences, although they pop up from time to time. It makes her a more layered person, I think.
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