>On the day Charlie Hess was put in the ground his new widow, Lucinda, dressed in black with a twist. Underneath the trim black Armani suit Charlie bought her after a big score she wore a hot pink garter belt. Per ounce it probably cost more than cocaine. It looked great on her, a view only Charlie had enjoyed. This was the last time she would wear it.
>
>A couple hundred yards away George Fisk surveyed the burial as inconspicuously as he could. A cemetery is a good place to go unnoticed. Speaking into a microphone near his shoulder, he took note of who arrived and with whom. Periodically he pretended to pay his respects at the nearest headstone. “Gladys Phillips. 1943 – 2005. Beloved Mother.” He idly wondered who she was and what she meant to those who paid for her gravestone.

Seems like a good start. From these two paragraphs, I get a sense of something on the hard-boiled side.

You should look around in your area and see whether you can find/start a writing group. Marshal's had a small one for years with two women he met in a writing seminar; they edit and critique each other's work. One of them is in the end stages of writing a novel.

Tamar