What Are the Elements of a Great PI Series?
by Alex Segura
I didn’t think I was writing a series when I started working on my debut novel, Silent City. At that point, I was flying blind, toying with the idea of writing my very own crime novel in the same vein as the books that inspired me. But as I hit the last third of the book, I started to realize I liked writing my alcoholic amateur PI, Pete Fernandez, and I was curious to see what came next.
It was then that I started to map things out – in a loose, general way. I also looked at the series I loved for inspiration. How did authors like George Pelecanos, Laura Lippman, Lawrence Block and others steer their ship through numerous books? I recently taught a course for the nonprofit Newtown Literary organization at a local Queens, NY library about the elements of the modern private eye, and found the research it entailed – revisiting many classics I’d read years ago – along with the responses from the students to be extremely fulfilling and fun. It also got me to thinking about just what it takes to write a successful PI series, and the forks in the road we find along the way.
This has, of course, been front of mind for me of late, on the heels of the release of my fourth Pete Fernandez novel, Blackout, and as I finish off a draft of Miami Midnight, which feels in many ways like the last – or the last for a while. Here are a few of the things I grappled with and decided on along the way, and how I found them to be helpful – along with suggested alternatives – while crafting a PI series.
Evergreen vs. Evolving. I knew, early on, that I didn’t want Pete – an alcoholic ex-journalist returning to his hometown of Miami when we meet him in Silent City – to be static. I also knew I wanted to learn about how he came to be a PI. There are many, many classic PI series where the protagonist changes little from book to book, where continuity is minimal and you meet the hero after he’s already established to some degree – Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer come to mind immediately – but I was more interested in not only exploring the origin story of my PI, but having him change from book-to-book. Pete’s struggles with addiction and his improvements as a PI make for a more compelling and fun read, in my view. While I love Marlowe and Archer as much as the next guy, I knew I wanted my character to evolve with each installment, in the same way characters I loved – like Lippman’s Tess Monaghan, Reed Farrel Coleman’s Moe Prager, and Dennis Lehane’s Patrick Kenzie (and Angie Gennaro!) went through notable changes as the series progressed. Your mileage, of course, may vary, but it’s something you should figure out on the front-end. You may also want to figure out if you think your PI should be licensed (official, to some degree – a la Marlowe) or an amateur (Easy Rawlins, Travis McGee). In my case, I wanted Pete to eventually become an official PI – it happens early in the pages of the third book in the series, Dangerous Ends, but he started out as an amateur, making his fair share of mistakes.
Setting. The PI series I cherished were oozing with a sense of place. Chandler’s LA, Block’s hardboiled NYC, Lippman’s Baltimore and the Washington, DC of the Pelecanos novels transported me to cities I’d only visited as a tourist, and they made me feel like I was getting a firsthand look at the corners I’d never see on vacation. While there have been a few great series set in my hometown of Miami, I wanted to open the curtain and show readers Miami through my eyes – the diverse, sprawling and complicated city I grew up in. That’s why the bulk of the action in my series happens there. Setting is arguably as important as your hero to making a series memorable. What place speaks to you? What area or neighborhood will help your series stand out? Keep that in mind while stirring the pot on your PI stew. That sounds gross. Don’t cook your PI. But you get what I mean. Give your series personality by showing the reader a place in only ways you, the author, can share. If you can do that well, you’re halfway to a memorable series.
Supporting Cast. While not all PI series feature extensive supporting casts – we rarely see Marlowe or Archer interact with the same people from book to book, for example – the ones that do it well are all the better for it. Great supporting characters create contrast between themselves and the stars of the series. Some may even surprise you – and you should keep yourself open and flexible to giving characters more airtime if they click. They can be anyone, really – partners, sidekicks, love interests, police contacts or mentors. As long as they provide some diversity in terms of tone and personality and play off your lead well. As an example: Silent City concludes with our amateur PI Pete finding the missing woman he’d been searching for – spoiler alert! – and, despite being worse for wear, considering doing this PI thing full-time. I was so entranced by the character of Kathy Bentley in the few scenes I wrote for her in Silent City, that I had to find a way to keep using her. The Pete-Kathy dynamic, and her ability to call him on his mistakes and keep him honest, struck me as far more interesting than Pete as the solitary vigilante looking to right the ills of the world. The series, as a whole, became better by adding Kathy’s witty barbs and her unique, genuine perspective. For every Scudder, there should be a Mick Balou, for every Kenzie a Bubba Rugowski or Angie Gennaro, Tess Monaghan has her lover Crow and BFF, Whitney. Know your PI’s faults and find characters that shine a light on them. It’ll make the writing of the series that much more fun.
These are just the broad strokes, of course. You’ll have to define other parts of your character – and series – as you go. Like, what profession does the PI have that makes being a private eye a good fit? I made Pete an ex-journalist because there’s a ton of overlap in terms of doing research and interviewing people between reporters and PIs, so it felt like a good fit. I put a twist on it by making Pete a sports journalist who’d fallen from favor. Another big element to consider are your character’s flaws. Pete Fernandez comes from a long line of alcoholic PIs, but unlike many of his predecessors, he’s sought help, and a big part of the series for me has been about exploring his journey toward sobriety. He’s not the first – Matt Scudder is a great example of the Addict as PI sub-genre – but I like to think his stop-start fight to get clean is unique and rings true. But ask yourself what flaws are going to define your PI, and what they’ll do in the books to either overcome these flaws or not. Lastly, think about the world we live in today and what you’d like to shine a light on. Crime fiction is, hands down, the truest pipeline to getting a clear, unfiltered picture of the world, warts and all. What are the issues that grab you, that you’d like to present to readers – even if the message is wrapped in the shiny paper of a mystery or thriller? Crime writing allows writers to give readers a look at the corners of the world they might miss in their day-to-day, and that’s an invaluable and important opportunity.
To close out, here’s a brief reading list of the PI novels that inspired me (all first in series) that might do the same for you. I taught these in the class I mentioned, so they’re all US-based, so don’t treat this as a be-all, end-all, comprehensive list. A fun starting point, if anything. Good luck on your journey.
- Philip Marlowe – The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
- Sam Spade – The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (not a series, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t include it)
- Lew Archer – The Moving Target by Ross Macdonald
- Travis McGee – The Deep Blue Good-By by John D. MacDonald
- Spenser – The Godwulf Manuscript by Robert B. Parker
- Matt Scudder – The Sins of the Fathers by Lawrence Block
- V.I. Warshawski – Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky
- Easy Rawlins – Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
- C.W. Sughrue – The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
- Moe Prager – Walking the Perfect Square by Reed Farrel Coleman
- Nick Stefanos – A Firing Offense by George Pelecanos
- Patrick Kenzie (and Angie Gennaro) – A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane
- Tess Monaghan – Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman
- Elvis Cole – The Monkey’s Raincoat by Robert Crais
- Thorn – Under Cover of Daylight by James W. Hall
- Boone Daniels – The Dawn Patrol by Don Winslow
- Brenna Spector – And She Was by Alison Gaylin
- Claire DeWitt – Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran
- Pete Fernandez – Silent City by Alex Segura
- Ash McKenna – New Yorked by Rob Hart
- Jackson Donne – When One Man Dies by Dave White
- Rebekah Roberts – Invisible City by Julia Dahl
- Dayna Anderson – Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garrett
Alex Segura is the author of the Pete Fernandez mystery series set in Miami – the latest novel, BLACKOUT, was released this year and received praise from The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly and more. His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, and he has also written various best-selling and critically acclaimed comic books. Additionally, he co-writes the LETHAL LIT podcast for iHeart Media. 