Crime fiction

[Benjm]

Paul Cane's Fast One is a pretty wild 'Golden Age' (1933) noir.

I've got a copy of this but have never got around to reading it. The jacket puffs are all to the effect that he makes James M Cain look like Alexander McCall Smith.

I haven't been reading so much crime lately, or indeed reading, but have enjoyed books by Antti Tuomainen and Margaret Millar. The former is often plugged as the Finnish Carl Hiaasen, which isn't too far off the mark, included the occasional air of being slightly too pleased with his own efforts. The latter deserves to be as well known as her husband, Ross MacDonald, and is particularly good at drawing middle class life in Michigan/Ontario and, later, Southern California. She has a lighter touch than her other half when it comes to the misery of families.

[Sunderporinostesta]

Paul Cane's Fast One is a pretty wild 'Golden Age' (1933) noir. It begins in chaos, umpteen characters are introduced at once, and it's written like the author ingested most of the cocaine that serves as the story's McGuffin. It ends suddenly with a surprise that Hollywood at the time would never have dared. In between you can just about catch your breath, but not for long. It's a great ride.

Back in the 80s there was a U.K. series of 3 or 4 30s US novels by single crime/pulp authors gathered into an omnibus collection type affair. Pink n black covers called black lizard collections or similar. Maxim Jabawoski (sp?) the U.K. based crime author and critic who also owned Murder One bookshop in Charing Cross Rd was behind them I think. Paul Cain was one collection and David Goodis another I can remember. All very sparse, noir and brutal.
I got mine from Camden Market and have no idea what happened to them. Maybe I’m an amnesiac or was it an inside job? Or both? Maybe after this one last big job I’ll have the cabbage to hire a gumshoe to find out?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Heh. Coincidentally I just finished Dope by Sara Gran, a present day noirista. It has a similar downbeat conclusion to Fast One, though quite different otherwise. Well worth a read if you haven't already had a taste.

I haven't been reading so much crime lately, or indeed reading, but have enjoyed books by Antti Tuomainen and Margaret Millar. The former is often plugged as the Finnish Carl Hiaasen, which isn't too far off the mark, included the occasional air of being slightly too pleased with his own efforts. The latter deserves to be as well known as her husband, Ross MacDonald, and is particularly good at drawing middle class life in Michigan/Ontario and, later, Southern California. She has a lighter touch than her other half when it comes to the misery of families.

Margaret Millar's Beast in View, is a favourite of mine. I must look out some more.

[Sunderporinostesta]

I've got a copy of this but have never got around to reading it. The jacket puffs are all to the effect that he makes James M Cain look like Alexander McCall Smith.

I haven't been reading so much crime lately, or indeed reading, but have enjoyed books by Antti Tuomainen and Margaret Millar. The former is often plugged as the Finnish Carl Hiaasen, which isn't too far off the mark, included the occasional air of being slightly too pleased with his own efforts. The latter deserves to be as well known as her husband, Ross MacDonald, and is particularly good at drawing middle class life in Michigan/Ontario and, later, Southern California. She has a lighter touch than her other half when it comes to the misery of families.

I only found out recently that they’d had problems with their daughter. It seems now as if he was reworking it into his work time after time. The Blue Hammer is his best for but there’s too little variation in style, plot and quality for me.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I tend to agree (re: MacDonald) though I've read most Lew Archer novels so there must something there. Perhaps it's as simple as nothing of Philip Marlowe is left unread, so Lew will do.

[Sunderporinostesta]

I tend to agree (re: MacDonald) though I've read most Lew Archer novels so there must something there. Perhaps it's as simple as nothing of Philip Marlowe is left unread, so Lew will do.

Exactly. Loren D Estlemans PI feller is still walking down the mean streets of Detroit once you’ve ran out of Lew Archer cases.
Im on my holidays at the moment and read The Big Sleep for the first time in decades by the pool yesterday. I still wouldn’t put money on who offed the chauffeur. The answer may turn up on a scrap of paper during a refurbishment of Chandlers house. Possibly.
Have you tried James Crumley? Reread The Dancing Bear today. His PI seems to spend a lot of time driving around Montana and Seattle in the snow off his nut wishing he’d moved to sunnier climes.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Oh yeah. I've had The Wrong Case and The Last Good Kiss on my bookshelf since they first came out in paperback. I've had discussions with friends, one in particular, about whether he's "no good" or "real good pretending to be bad." I guess I'll go with The Shangri-las suggestion, "He's good bad, but he's not evil."

[Benjm]

Biographical accounts suggest that Crumley enjoyed a similar refreshment routine to his protagonists with adverse effects on his later health. Unfortunately this shows in his work and the spark had gone from his last couple of novels, The Final Country and The Right Madness. They aren't as physically slight as Chandler's Playback, or even The Man with the Golden Gun, just weary and uninspired compared to his earlier books. He is still firing well in The Mexican Tree Duck and Bordersnakes. I prefer him in Montana to Texas but that may just be because it is less familiar as a setting so more identifiably his.

[Sunderporinostesta]

Yeah. They get a bit Raymond Chandler crossed with Fear and Loathing era Hunter Thompson at times.

[Levin]

I've picked up the first Martin Beck novel after seeing them featured in Decision to Leave. I've not read any crime fiction in ages. I think the last things were the Campion series.

I'm posting though as I'm watching Alec Guinness as a very good Fr. Brown. Has anyone read the series? Are the stories good?

[Felicity, I guess so]

Just read Alan Parks Bloody January.
Glasgow in the 70s, troubled cop with a past and some dodgy
habits and connections.
very readable, I went to Glasgow every summer and some Xmasses 70-76, so I lapped up the local colour.

[danielmak]

I haven't read any of these, but figured I would share a link in case someone is interested in a specific city:
https://www.akashicbooks.com/subject/noir-series/

[Sunderporinostesta]

I haven't read any of these, but figured I would share a link in case someone is interested in a specific city:
https://www.akashicbooks.com/subject/noir-series/

Didn't realise there were so many. Ive read a few before going to the city concerned. The majority of stories contained could be easily transferred to another place. I like them.

[The_Purple_Cow]

Has anyone read the Marcus Didius Falco books? There are about 20 of them I believe. I've seen them described as 'Sam Spade in a toga', which is about right.. They are hard boiled detectives set around the time of the year of the four emperors. AD79 ish. I listen to them while walking the dog, they are ideal for that, entertaining without being massively hard work.

[Levin]

I used to love them. Absolutely fantastic books that explored the empire, and had a balance of noir, romance and lightness.

The characters age as the series goes on. I've not read the last few to be honest but there was a period when I'd get the hardbacks when they came out.

There is a terrible film with the guy from the FX films as the lead.

I still love them. I've just not read them in a while.

[Benjm]

I liked the Falco books and read about ten of them as they came out (in paperback) from the second in the series onwards. This was a while ago but from memory the reason I gradually went off them a bit was because authors of long running series often grow either to hate their creations or to become too fond of them. Lindsey Davis, I found, fell into the latter camp and eventually seemed to be finding Falco's antics more of a hoot than I was. But this was some way into the sequence. I hugely enjoyed the at least the first half dozen and wouldn't discourage anyone from trying them.

[Felicity, I guess so]

I'm on a bit of a Thomas Perry binge. Discovered by chance on the Carlisle Station charity bookshelf, Runner was him reviving a character from the 90s who helps people disappear.

Have always been a sucker for that as a starting point for a novel (Douglas Kennedy The Big Picture was great) so I've been trying to acquire the earlier run of novels and ones about other characters. Sadly not many on kindle and the paperback copies are not the cheapest, but am onto my 3rd.

[Felicity, I guess so]

The Carlisle shelves have turned up other unknown gems but insomniac brain can't quite pin the author's name down...

[danielmak]

Razorcake is a punk magazine based in the US. Every few issues they run something called One Punk's Guide To... The topics vary, but the point is to consider the topic from the standpoint of a punker (professional wrestling, urban gardening, Christian punk). I was sifting through some old issues to send to the public library and found One Punk's Guide to Crime Novels. I didn't make note of the publication date, but it probably was published during COVID quarantine since I had about 10 issues in my office waiting to be read from that time. I scanned the article and thought I would share it here. I don't know if most of the dedicated posters to this thread will learn more about any particular authors or learn about new authors, but it's a quick read and kind of fun. The link below will work for the next 30 days (click the link, accept the cookies, download the PDF if you're interested).

Maybe the post was better for the hard boiled noir thread, but this one seems to be more active.

https://sendgb.com/4vobJMQOeI7

[Sunderporinostesta]

Just finished
Michael Connolly-The Black Ice. It’s the second of his Bosch series. A bit far fetched. I’m glad he reels in the action hero bollocks later in the series.

Just started
John Le Carre-Call For The Dead. Last night I was about 20 library book pages in before I started thinking “this Battersea stuff seems familiar”. Today I’ve realised not only have I read it before but I also bought it for 99pon Amazon a while back.

Ive got to find my completed book list.

[Felicity, I guess so]

I have mine saved on my phone after years of that kind of cock up

[Benjm]

Ross Macdonald was my regular duplication trap. Most of his novels have a similar premise - Archer is called to help unhappy rich people and dark family secrets emerge - so it was possible to get quite a way into one without being sure whether I had actually read it before or not.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Oh yeah, definitely Macdonald for me too. As, in a different genre, are PG Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories.

[Levin]

Has anyone here read Red Harvest?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Yup. But a long time ago.