When I created Devil Barnett back in the mid 80’s the idea
of a bad-assed African American ex-CIA hitman turned private detective appealed
to me. Now I could use my hard boiled, world-weary cynical detective to right
some wrongs as well as express my views about what I saw as ingrained social
injustices and inequalities. I could now slate big business criminality and
indifference along with the widespread political corruption and complicity that
I believed had become a part of the hidden malignant underbelly of the American
culture machine. The same machine that I felt was driving its citizenry towards
a strange kind of collective psychosis.
Now some thirty years later when I read that there were 372
mass killings in the US during the past year, I am horrified and astounded to
realize that even my ardent and youthful cynicism has been eclipsed by a
reality more sinister and brutal than I had imagined;
making me realize that Devil Barnett has a lot more work to do.
