Frank Hastings is a fictional
detective
A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads th ...
in the
Homicide
Homicide occurs when a person kills another person. A homicide requires only a volitional act or omission that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no inten ...
Detail of the
San Francisco Police Department, who is the main character in a
police procedural
The police show, or police crime drama, is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasizes the investigative procedure of a police officer or department as the protagonist(s), as contrasted with other genres that focus on eith ...
series by
Collin Wilcox (1924-1996).
Hastings is a divorced man who came to the law enforcement profession comparatively late in life. Like his creator, he was born and raised in
Detroit,
Michigan. After graduating from college, he was briefly a professional
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
player in the
Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at Ford ...
. After his marriage went sour, he moved west and eventually joined the SFPD. He rose quickly in the department and is now the junior
lieutenant in Homicide, subordinate to his close friend, Lieutenant Pete Friedman.
Most of the Hastings novels are
first-person narratives told by Hastings himself, but some later books in the series are told in the
third person
Third person, or third-person, may refer to:
* Third person (grammar), a point of view (in English, ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', and ''they'')
** Illeism, the act of referring to oneself in the third person
* Third-person narrative, a perspective in p ...
.
One of the entries in the series, ''Twospot'', was a collaboration between Wilcox and
Bill Pronzini
Bill Pronzini (born April 13, 1943) is an American writer of detective fiction. He is also an active anthologist, having compiled more than 100 collections, most of which focus on mystery, western, and science fiction short stories. Pronzini is ...
. It teamed Hastings with Pronzini's popular series character, a middle-aged San Francisco private investigator referred to by fans as the
Nameless Detective. Hastings and "Nameless" alternate as narrators of the novel.
The Hastings series was widely praised in publications like ''
The Armchair Detective'' for their convincing characters, strong plots, and vivid portrayal of
San Francisco.
The Frank Hastings titles include:
* ''The Lonely Hunter'' (1969)
* ''The Disappearance'' (1970)
* ''Dead Aim'' (1971)
* ''Hiding Place'' (1973)
* ''Long Way Down'' (1974)
* ''Aftershock'' (1975)
* ''Doctor, Lawyer'' (1977)
* ''Twospot'' (1978) with Bill Pronzini
* ''The Watcher'' (1978)
* ''Power Plays'' (1979)
* ''Mankiller'' (1980)
* ''Stalking Horse'' (1982)
* ''Victims'' (1984)
* ''Night Games'' (1986)
* ''The Pariah'' (1988)
* ''Death Before Dying'' (1990)
* ''Hire a Hangman'' (1991)
* ''Dead Center'' (1992)
* ''Switchback'' (1993)
* ''Calculated Risk'' (1995)
References
{{Reflist
Hastings, Frank