The City Lives in Me: Connectivity and Embeddedness in Australia’s Peter Temple and Shane Maloney

Abstract

The serialized hardboiled hero, according to Moore (2006), has gone through three distinctive iterations of character development: the early period (1927–55), the transitional period (1964–77) and the modern period (1979–present). Constant throughout these stages, however, has been reluctance by the hero to connect with and embed him- or herself fully within society. Connectivity, Moore suggests, is a danger that can lead to obligation and makes a character susceptible to others’ influence at the cost of investigative integrity (2006, 227). I will argue, however, that popular contemporary urban Australian crime fiction frequently repositions connectivity and embeddedness as a useful tool that leads not to danger, but to greater investigative independence. Connectivity and embeddedness, I propose, are states that particularly suit serialized fiction.