Detectives and rock stars linger—grizzled, undaunted, and occasionally crossing paths professionally—as the last great drinkers. The rest of us have begun to abide by the rules, limiting ourselves out of vanity or medical necessity, but not these people. Whether cops, private investigators, or unlucky but bullheaded citizens, they spend their days delving into depravity and violence, faced with lies and venality on every side. Their stresses are greater, their view of humanity crueler, their need for numbness stronger. I don’t know what the rock stars’ excuse is.

But even the detectives have begun to scale back. Everyone knows the glory days of the genre were gin-soaked and smoky, but apparently so was America. Now in popular mysteries, most detectives start their days with a quick three-mile jog instead of a belt. Thank God the heart of the detective hero remains a weary, if healthier, muscle: our heroes are still loners, still alienated by particular ghosts, still rolling into bed with the occasional willing partner who understands the needs of The Job. Almost invariably they’re haunted by something—by loss, regret, or rage. Private Investigator V. I. Warshawski lost the refined Italian mother who forced her to reach beyond a working-class Chicago neighborhood. Rogue Scottish cop John Rebus neglected his family in favor of police work, and now the wife is long gone and the daughter in a wheelchair (yes, it is his fault). For L.A., detective Harry Bosch, the image of a dead girl’s empty, reaching hands is the reminder of the unsolved murders accumulated over twenty years of police work. Readers expect a mystery to plague all heroes, something to explain how they crossed the line from regular joe to fearless searcher. Hence the endless slew of murdered wives, swimming forever lithe and beautiful through the male heroes’ dreams. (Not nearly as many angelic, sexy male corpses litter the landscape.) The murdered wives are such a type that there may, in fact, have been only a single one in the whole history, reincarnated and killed over and over—maybe the reeling husbands just can’t quite recall if her eyes were green or blue, her hair blonde or bewitching mahogany. It doesn’t matter. The dead wives are not created to matter; they’re usually created solely to explain why our heroes have stripped their lives to the bare minimum of work, melancholy, and meals and booze.