Just how ‘hard’ does a coal-fired noir detective have to be?

Setting the scene… the detective is a step up from the one-foot-in-bankruptcy-court pulper, more in line with a Simon Templar type. He has to be cold hearted but he has to be human – things must upset him.

Given the different social mores of the post-Great War period, AND the fact that there has been a genre slip into airship flying electro-gun zapping steampunkism (hey, another new word!) just how hard do I have to make this guy to have him ‘fit’ the storyline? Can he shoot a prisoner in cold blood? Can he beat life saving information out of someone and not have a moral qualm?

Dammit, I’ll just write the scenes and see if they fit.

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