The Next Right Thing has humanity, humor, and insight to burn. Author Dan Barden takes the clay of the California hard-boiled novel and shapes it into something new.

The Next Right Thing has humanity, humor, and insight to burn. Author Dan Barden takes the clay of the California hard-boiled novel and shapes it into something new.

The reason some crime writers have a chip on their shoulder about the label is because their good books are shelved beside books about nuns and birdwatchers and cats who solve crimes. Overseas, my books are reviewed alongside those of authors like Robert Stone and Don DeLillo, and I have to live and die by that comparison. They don't ghettoize crime writers in other countries, and of course they shouldn't.

I'm a better writer now because I've worked very hard at getting better. My long-range goal will always be to write better books.

The most popular American fiction seems to be about successful people who win, and good crime fiction typically does not explore that world. But honestly, if all crime fiction was quality fiction, it would be taken more seriously.

Top-shelf fiction, a Crown Royal ride into the heart of Night and New York. Con Lehane's work is reminiscent of the best of Lawrence Block, which is to say that this is very good stuff, indeed.

We remember when women were spoken of differently. I don't mean that we didn't speak of women sexually - that happened. It was never this crude: there wasn't the connotations, the violence. I think there's got to be a relationship between the coarsening of the culture, of which pornography was a piece of the puzzle.