Dutch Forkes

Celebrated "private dick," hard-boiled, or rather, poached. He appeared in two novels by Stimes Addisson. His name is an homage to Wilhemina Forkes and his character is based upon stories she used to tell of a crazy uncle--Günter Forkes--who set up a diamond shop in Amsterdam and converted to Judaism after the Second World War. He was stabbed to death by a half-mad rabbinical student who'd fallen in love with Forkes' wife. In the books, however, Dutch isn't Jewish and lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Though rarely found outside dime stores and run-down shanties, Addisson's work in the detective milieu has received and extraordinary amount of attention in recent years. Launching this critical reappriasal was 2002's The Forkes Enigma: A Study of Cryptoprophecy Noir.

Non-Canonical Text

"Pleased by the parting of a crowd the criminal builds an arsenal. A cabinet of observation, of deadly vision through a slight -- through the fastidious expanse of an over-attendant mam -- a cruising face set of smile, each mile, settled, like poetry given to a woman weeping from birth -- entire faces reaching out, splayed, impossibly. Let's cut it short. We can step to the door. Or we can seem."

"Yeah. I seem. We all seem. Where've you been? I have shit to fuck you with." -- t.wilson (igloo, 2005)

See Also

• Blood Red Blues
• Ritual Murder
• Stabbin' Hat
• Stimes Addisson's Blues

Desiderata

Philip K. Dick's FBI file includes numerous letters outlining a series of concerns regarding Dutch's loyality, masculinity, and inquiries into PKD's business.