[I’ll explain the groceries in a minute…]
Now, there’s an Italian, a Spaniard and an American…
No, it’s not a silly joke.
It’s what happened in a quick exchange of tweets, a few nights back, with two fine gentlemen from America and Spain respectively.
The subject was pulp.
New Pulp, if you will.
The question was – what about stories not set in the United States?

What about some international setting?

I contributed tha suggestion that, preserving the time-frame (stories set somewhere between the ’30s and ’40s), and the overall structure (character-driven thrills and derring-do), the Mediterranean area would be the perfect setting.

Just consider…

• Italy, Greece, the Holy Land, the Near East, North Africa… the highest concentration of art and archaeological treasures per square meter in the world
• … and of course all the related ancient mysteries!
• Monte Carlo and the Cote d’Azur if you want elegance and class
• Venice!
• lots of port cities – first and foremost Marseille and Istanbul
• smuggling and other shady activities
• Egypt!
• the Fascist in Italy, civil war in Spain, the Nazis sniffing around, the British Navy…
• espionage, intrigue, danger
• refugees (Viktor Laszlo, anyone?)
• AND great food!

Sort of gets you thinking, right?

Just think about the huge number of great stories set in the area, from For Whom the Bell Tolls to Mask of Dimitrios viaTo Catch a Thief and The Zoo Gang.

No need for massive research – a coupple of old archaeology books, my uncle’s old atlas (for sea routes and other details), some historical reference.
Nothing that’s not already sitting here on my shelf.
Short character sketches, and Lester Dent’s formula.
For my money, it would be worth trying.
Let’s see… it’s all about character, right?

A man of mystery,  willing to face danger to help others – or to make a buck!
Living on a two-master – so he can move around the Mediterranean, and be where I need him, depending on the story at hand.
No shortage of young women on board – shades of Travis McGee.
A man of independent means – a man with a past.
Was he a gun runner during the Spanish Civil War?
Is he running from something? Someone?
Or is he just enjoying the sea, looking for kicks?
Is he doing some antiques smuggling as a source of extra income?

What I’m imagining, here, is not a paragon in the style of Doc Savage, or a masked avenger like The Spider, but more of an ironic rogue, an adventurer in the Indiana Jones league.
With a dash of Lime.
Harry Lime.

Someone who could say things like…

The only skill I can claim for myself, is a knack for getting in and out of trouble.

Such a man needs more than a tagline, he needs a name – and I’d like something hard to pin.
Is he Italian? French? An expat American? The authorities are baffled.
Martin, for instance, as a family name can be Italian, French, Spanish, even British or American.
I’ll add that St. Martin is the patron saint of soldiers, knights and mercenaries, which is just what the doctor ordered.
An equally non-language specific first name? What about Leo Martin?

Pity there was already a famous Leo Martin, out there… but hey, it’s a starting point.

For the looks – ah, a young Ian McShane.
Dark and ironic, capable of being both rough and elegant.
Pyratical enough, for me.

I can already see a line of damsels in distress, shady contacts, unlikely allies, strange and disquieting bad guys.
The ancient treasure of the Knights of Malta, the mystery of Minoan super-science, Thulegesellschaft agents (always a good thing, stomping Nazis!), sea monsters, ancient curses, ghost ships …
Dark alleys, elegant casinos, rough stretches of shrub-lined rocky coast, nameless islets…

The toughest bit would be, for an Italian, the politics.
Which is silly – c’mon, the politics of pulp?
The hero smashes the bad guys and saves the day (and the girl) – nice and smooth.

But setting a story in or around Italy during the Regime years would be like tap-dancing in a minefild.
Make the Fascist less than all-out evil, and you’ll be labelled as a revisionist nostalgic right-winger.
Cast the Fascists as bad guys, point out the bankrupt ideology behind their rule, and brain-dead neo-fascists will crucify your cat on the garden gate.
And both ways, you won’t find a publisher in hell willing to touch your stories with a ten foot pole, and a lot of very scandalized people will point out that you are writing sensationalistic rubbish and talking about what’s best left alone.

I saw it happen, to authors far better than me.

Not that I give a damn, of course.
And finding a publisher in Italy is impossible anyway – not for pulp, not without certain compromises, so who cares?
I’ll keep these notes handy, and I’ll try and write at least one story about my modern-day swashbuckler – to try it on for size, so to speak.
And then, should anything good come out of it, I’ll find a publisher for it.
Or publish it myself.

Oh, and I’d call the series, should a series becomereality, The Corsair.
With my regards to Lord Byron.
It would be great.

And as I told you yesterday, I even have a soundtrack playing out in the back of my mind.