Hired to write an original Law and Order novel, I was told that the novelist's challenge was that the show was characterless; that is to say, unlike many other television series (like the spin-off Law and Order: Special Victims Unit), the internal struggles of the characters were of little or no consequence. Nonetheless, fear of the "Yellow Peril" unfortunately lingers, and images of leering Hispanic drug lords have recently become part of our national political discourse, drawing on the echoes of characterization in movies like The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Fear of the viral storms released as a reaction to racism inhibits the creation of many of these oldfashioned criminal masterminds, which is good, but it also might explain why so many of our movies have bad-guy robots or aliens or comic-book mutants. J. Madison Davis is the author of eight mystery novels, including The Murder of Frau Schütz, an Edgar nominee, and Law and Order: Dead Line.