Authentic hard-boiled fiction is also about real people trying to live their lives, to make it in the day-to-day and getting smashed down inch by inch, lower and lower. But they still hang in there. They refuse to go down for the count. They’re not giving up a damn thing, because they’ve had to fight like hell every day of their life for what they’ve got – and they’ll fight like hell every day of their life to keep it. And I’m not talking materialism here, folks. Not at all. I’m talking pride, honor, dignity, respect, the truth, going out of your way to help a friend, or going out of your way to fuck the enemy, days of blood and rage, a gut full of hurt, stand-up people in a sit-down shut-up world. That’s hard-boiled!
—The Hard-boiled Way by Gary Lovisi

I took my story basically from that.

I liked both stories. At times it seems to that you switch back and forth from the hard-boiled style to a more modern way of talking and describing things. This is more in the first story than this one. I can’t really point anything specific out but it is just the feeling I have from reading it.

According to the essay I read, hard-boiled isn’t purely about the style or writing, but about the people who keep fighting to live.