Detective trilogy set in the future inspired by crime-writing masters of the past

Elliott Hall’s new novel, The Children’s Crusade, is the final part of his acclaimed Strange trilogy. The detective series is an action-packed mystery set in a post- apocalyptic Houston where private investigator Felix Strange is working on his last case. Despite the futuristic setting Hall’s books hark back, in style at least, to some of the great masters of the crime-writing genre, in particular Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy.
By Chris Bond
Published 13th May 2011, 11:38 BST

The Canadian-born author wanted to create a character different from the conventional detective. “He’s a war veteran who suffers health problems as a result and no one wants to know him, he’s this troubled outsider.”

It was while studying English Literature at Leeds University as part of an exchange programme in 2000, that Hall first began toying with the idea of writing a hard-hitting detective series. He says he enjoyed his time in Yorkshire. “I had a wonderful time, I just wish I could remember all of it,” he says, jokingly. After graduating, he concentrated on his writing and began the opening instalment of his trilogy, The First Stone, in 2008. “I had been watching America lose its mind from the safety of this side of the Atlantic for several years. The panic caused by terrorism and an ascendant religious right was a potent and frightening cocktail. I wanted to talk about that mixture of faith and authoritarianism, and I decided on the hard-boiled detective fiction of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler,” he says.

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“Noir might seem an odd choice at first. It’s best known for witty one-liners, untrustworthy dames, and marble-mouthed gangsters. Next to the hoods and molls is another tradition just as important, one that’s been around since Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest: corruption. This is corruption not only of the personal kind – affairs and drug habits that are the bread and butter of any private detective – but the official corruption of the mobbed-up mayor and the dirty cop.”

He believes the enduring appeal of crime writing lies in its accessibility. “Crime novels are still popular because people like murder stories. But also they allow you to write about society in a way people find easier to follow than is often the case in more literary stories.”

Hall divides his time between writing and his job as a researcher at King’s College, London, and is working on his next novel, set in Victorian times. As a premise, it could scarcely be any more different from his Strange trilogy, but as he’s already shown he’s not afraid to play with genres.

The Children’s Crusade is published by John Murray, priced £14.99.