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/lit/ - Literature

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12721012 No.12721012 [Reply] [Original]

What are your essential noir and or detective fiction novels?

>> No.12721076
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12721076

All the Philip Marlowe books.

>> No.12721141

Jim Thompson's the killer inside me

>> No.12721153

>>12721012
Read Chandler and Paul Cain’s “Fast One”

>> No.12721264

>>12721012
Everything by Dashiell Hammett,Raymond Chandler,Jim Thompson and Donald E. Westlake

>> No.12721306

>>12721012
I would do this >>12721076 first and then read Ross Macdonald:
>The Chill
>The Instant Enemy
>Black Money
>The Far Side of the Dollar
and also his short stories are great

Also, I wouldn't consider him essential, but I really like James Crumley's books, especially The Wrong Case and Dancing Bear

>> No.12721396

I'd recommend getting an anthology and figuring out which writers you like from there.

Cornell Woolrich is particularly delightful

>> No.12721506
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12721506

>> No.12721535

LA Confidential
The Burnt Orange Heresy
After Dark My Sweet

>> No.12721750
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12721750

>>12721012
Mickey Spillane’s “Mike Hammer” books are fun reads. Manly men and womanly women. And alcohol.

>> No.12722155
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12722155

>Vachss

>> No.12722235

>>12721012
this novel was pretty lame

>> No.12722248

>>12722235
I disagree. I thought it was dark, brooding and exciting.

>> No.12722380

>>12722235
>pretty lame
How so?

>> No.12722381

>>12722248
to each their own. although i agree it was dark and brooding, it didn't evoke the pulp fiction vibe that I was expecting

>> No.12722410

>>12722381
I never expected it to read like pulp fiction myself. It has plenty of suggestion but never attempts actual illustration of pulp elements.
>What made you expect it to be pulp fiction rather than detective or noir?

>> No.12722631
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12722631

>>12721012
one of my most prized /lit/ items is an old dell mapback edition of Nightmare Town. Good little story

>> No.12722675

>>12721012
Honestly I think the genre reached its peak with Hammett's "Thin Man" which was essentially a detective story that was spoofing itself as it went along. Some of the best hard-boiled prose of all time in that book. First line is a classic:

>I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. She was small and blonde, and whether you looked at her face or at her body in powder-blue sports clothes the result was satisfactory.

>> No.12722777

>>12721012
Of all genre fiction, noir is the one that holds a higher standard toward style and prose, which I can respect. Chandler was a stellar stylist.

>> No.12722785
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12722785

>>12722777
this post is one that holds a higher standard towards dubs and trips, which I can respect

>> No.12722874

>>12722777
Trips of truth

>> No.12722883

>>12722410
i'd just seen in referenced in other works and got the impression it was a kind of pulpy detective novel. that being said, do you have any pulp fiction to recc?

>> No.12723116
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12723116

>>12721012
Just finished pic related two minutes ago and holy fuck. It starts off good if a bit slow, but 2nd half is incredible and the ending was brilliant, abrupt, crushing like a punch in the face

>> No.12723161

I have never encountered a better Noir writer than Simenon. He is completely in another league from Hammett and Chandler, though I enjoy those guys too. Patricia Highsmith is the only other one who I'd rate to be near Simenon. Would love to expand this list but it hasn't happened yet...