If Sherlock Holmes can survive the Reichenbach Falls, then surely we have not seen the last of Detective Sergeant John Munch.
Because I read so much nonfiction for work, I enjoy fiction most, especially detective novels and mysteries that keep me awake at night.
For the finale, I thought the audience deserved to get a close point of view on the monster, and to recognize him the way you recognize the heroes of 'True Detective.'
In history, one gathers clues like a detective, tries to present an honest account of what most likely happened, and writes a narrative according to what we know and, where we aren't absolutely sure, what might be most likely to have happened, within the generally accepted rules of evidence and sources.
In the early nineties, I was a cub reporter on a city newspaper in Limerick, and assigned to the courthouse there. One day, an old detective sergeant came and whispered to me in the press pit. He pointed out a young offender, a teenager who was up for stealing a car or something relatively minor, and said, 'See this kid? He'll kill.'
A show like 'True Detective' is definitely a drama.
It's like being involved in a detective story, looking for that thing that nobody else has found.
It's rare for me to read any fiction. I almost only read nonfiction. I don't believe in guilty pleasures, I only believe in pleasures. People who call reading detective fiction or eating dessert a guilty pleasure make me want to puke.
I never have liked detective dramas. I try to watch all of them to see what's going on, but I don't like them.
As music migrates into our iPods, CD collections require less and less room, residing in our heads rather than resounding off the walls. The protracted labor of amassing a personal music library has lost its detective zeal.
A working detective has no hope of understanding what even experts who devote their lives to the study of criminal psychology can't figure out.
In the summer of 2010, I had decided to get into film and TV writing, so I wrote scripts for six different ideas I had developed, and the pilot for 'True Detective' was one of them.
I've always had the wish, the nostalgia to be able to write detective novels. At heart, the principal themes of detective novels are close to the things that obsess me: disappearance, the problems of identity, amnesia, the return to an enigmatic past.
I read two mysteries a day when I was a kid. All of Agatha Christie, all of 'Sherlock Holmes.' I've seen every single British detective show ever made.
I could imagine actually being a scientist or a detective, but not a detective who puts his hands into gory, bloody things. But more like someone who figures things out. I like to figure things out.
Writing detective stories is about writing light literature, for entertainment. It isn't primarily a question of writing propaganda or classical literature.
The English tradition offers the great tapestry novel, where you have the emotional aspect of a detective's personal life, the circumstances of the crime and, most important, the atmosphere of the English countryside that functions as another character.
When I was young, I knew William Burroughs really well. And William's secret desire, which he never quite did, was to write a straightforward detective novel.
I think the first thing is don't give up. If you love the craft. If you love being a detective and discovering who a character is and the detail of how they walk and what kind of shoes they wear and what did they do yesterday and what's important to them. I definitely advise actors to learn about the craft.
I read a lot of 'Nancy Drew' books as a kid and considered myself a bit of an amateur detective.
This idea that you can watch a show like 'True Detective,' and it was awesome, but is it really ruined for you if the finale is not your favorite episode of it? It's just odd to me.
Even as I was writing 'Empire State,' I knew there were more adventures for the main character, private detective Rad Bradley, to have. I also knew that the world was far larger than what I'd presented in book one.
In detective land, you have to deal with a lot of intense emotions, so you yourself have to remain mostly unemotional and detached. These are people, like law enforcement and surgeons, in professions that don't have the luxury of being able to be emotional or to break down. In my line of work, it's almost a requirement.
