At the request of crime specialist and site editor Barry Forshaw, I wrote a piece for the Interviews section of the Crime Time online website. Here’s a taster:

There are two kinds of characters that carry novel series. They’re devised or they’re grown, and those are quite different beasts. The devised character is like a track car, stripped of all unnecessary parts in order to run and run. The art in the creation of such a series hero is assemble just enough well-chosen characteristics to give the illusion of a character without the encumbrances of personal development. As readers, we’re complicit in this. We accept Mike Hammer’s life of brutal solitude without questioning from where, exactly, comes this infinite supply of Old Friends who show up needing his help. 

 And you can read the rest here, if so inclined.