Crime Fiction, S/D

Surprised there isn't a thread on this already (there's a small UK Crime Fiction vs US Crime Fiction thread). Am thoroughly enjoying reading the New Fiction thread, but don't read enough New Fiction to participate. But I do read a lot of crime fiction. Series stuff, serious stuff, old stuff, new stuff, pulp stuff, trash stuff, wahoo!

Currently reading: The Big Gold Dream by Chester Himes
Stuff I like leans toward urban grit with a slight bent toward procedural: Richard Price, Walter Mosley, George Pelecanos, Charles Willeford, Ian Rankin, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo's Martin Beck series
Have lately discovered, mostly by accident Paco Ignacio Taibo II's post-Marxist absurdist Mexican noir, which is fantastic and highly recommended.

It's all about Patricia Highsmith.

himes's debut, if he hollers let him go, is a masterpiece. check out a coffin for dimitrios by eric ambler. the missing link between thomas de quincy and quentin tarantino

Richard Price, George Pelecanos ftw.

Also love Dennis Lehane's Kenzie-Gennaro series; Elmore Leonard, James Ellroy, James Lee Burke, Andrew Vachss (though he can be kinda patchy).
Gonna give Robert Crais a try, Monkey's Raincoat currently top of the pile awaiting greenlight.

What's a good starting point for Richard Price?

Clockers.

For me that's the definitive Price. I love pretty much everything he's written, but Clockers to me is his perfect novel. Wanderers a close second. But damn, Clockers is great. Just talking about it make me want to go back and reread it.

Definitely Clockers. The first thirty pages is basically a slightly more in-depth Wire Season 1.

Coffin for Demetrios is actually on the shelf beside my desk at work.

Am curious about Reed Farrel Coleman: big-upped by Pelecanos, drives a big-rig on the side, sounds like working-class noir. Anyone?

Anyone? Curious too. Also curious re James Lee Burke. I kinda think Pelecanos is overrated.

http://www.examiner.com/article/reed-farrel-coleman-peeling-back-the-layers-of-onion-street-q-a

does anyone hear read don winslow? i've been going back through some ones i read before (the savages/kings of cool diptych) and just read the dawn patrol and the death and life of bobby z anew.

now about to dive into the cartel, his sequel to the power of the dog, which is certainly his best book imo

*here. jesus

Yeah; I've read California Fire & Life (my favorite), Savages, Kings of Cool (hated the former, the latter was an improvement), The Dawn Patrol and The Death and Life of Bobby Z. Just finished The Cartel, and I think it's his best book if best = "most writerly." Not as slangy/attitude-poisoned as Savages, it reminded me of James Ellroy's The Big Nowhere - sprawling and ambitious, but not disappearing up his own ass like he did with American Tabloid and everything since.

aw, i like crazy conspiracy-ass ellroy. but i can totally see how it would be irksome. i haven't read california fire yet, and i see no reason for my winslow kick to stop rolling so i'll get to it after cartel

always appreciate how well winslow navigates tone from book to book, like the pissed-off sarcasm of savages/dawn patrol and the utter earnest despair of the power of the dog still seem very much like the same voice just in different cadences

anyhoo, glad this thread exists bc old and new crime fic are pretty much all i read these days!

Thanks for the revive. Am wondering if anyone can recommend novels about terrorists, esp. left-wing ones. I raided my library's booksale and found a novel about infiltrating an animal rights group. Can't remember what the book was but it got me thinking I'd like to read more plots like this.

I feel like massimo carlotto's novels have touched on things like that, like italian radical politics, although they are not the primary focus.

the vibe you describe losted seems more like espionage fiction, which I don't know as well except the big names - le carre, deighton, charles mccarry

re: all my winslow enthusiasm upthread, he did a podcast interview with grantland a little while ago and he touches on some fascinating stuff, like drug legalization https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/grantland-pop-culture/id642537435?mt=2&i=346205755

(on zing didn't realize how that link would copy, podcast can prob be found by searching on the grantland site)

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll check out Carlotto. Amazon has loads of 1-cent books, so I've been buying bunches of them. I was looking for novels about bombers, like Weather Underground or Unabomber bombers.
I'm not much for espionage and international terrorism stuff. But if any of it is worthwhile and not too "guy", let me know.

I am reading a Sharyn McCrumb book, I like her a lot. Hangman's Beautiful Daughter is really good. She is southern, if you like Appalachian settings.

Currently reading some Ross MacDonald books. If you're a fan of literary-ish detective stories in the Chandler/Hammett vein, he's well worth checking out. All the ones I've read tend to center around family trauma (kids who hate their parents, etc.) that metastasizes into murder and mayhem.

only read one macdonald but it was pretty incredible - the goodbye look

i like ross macdonald but they get AWFULLY samey after you read a few. I read a bunch though. I think i liked "the Chill' and "The Ivory Grin" the most.

lately i have been filling in gaps in my Elmore Leonard reading. Also just read one of the worst/stupidest Ed McBains yet.

i do like Carlotto, especially The Goodbye Kiss and At The End Of A Dull Day. His PI novels about The Alligator & friends are fun too, but not quite as dark.

I liked the McBain novels enough when I was in junior high that I'm afraid to revisit them now.

i prefer the earliest ones which are dated and kitchy and fun. the one i just read was just... boring and kinda bad. "Calypso" -- about a murdered calypso singer whose brother was abducted years ago by a mentally ill woman who keeps him locked up for S&M and torture? weird and boring.

ian you have any recommendations on the willeford/leonard tip? I see these crime authors who have thirty novels like creasey and others and w/my limited budget and time I haven't pulled the trigger on any of them.

I've read a number of Swedish crime novels lately but I'm getting tired of wealthy villains who are obsessed with cleanliness and have torture chambers at tier island greenhouse or whatever the hell adler-olsen and his ilk are writing about today.

for willeford, i really love miami blues. also cockfighter and the burnt orange heresy are really good. there was recently a movie made of The Woman Chaser starring Seinfeld's David Puddy. it's fun to watch.

My fave Elmore L -- well, here are some good ones -- Out of Sight, Killshot, Bandits, 52 Pickup, Pronto (i believe this is the first Raylan Givens novel?), LaBrava. I'm reading "Touch" now and it is enjoyable so far!

What Swedish/Scandinavian stuff do you like? I've not read much. A few of the Martin Beck novels and a couple Wallanders.

i never really fuck with the swedes for that precise reason lol, i lean toward crime shit that maybe has /some/ real-world social relevance

cosign all those leonards and also nominate road dogs. have never been able to find willeford at the library!

along similar lines, nomar have u heard of ross thomas? he's great and hugely underrated

Ross Thomas is good! Lots of political dirty work.

one thing about ross thomas though, is that sometimes his books feel a bit slow. like he spends the first 2/3 setting things up and putting all the gears in motion with (usually) a large number of characters moving towards separate purposes, and it's not until the last third that they become intensely gripping.

hey ian thx for the recs though I guess my question was muddled, I was asking abt similar authors. I'll check into Ross thomas!

I really like wallander and the beck stuff. I think some of the post-dragon tattoo writers lean towards torture porn a bit too much, as much as I like some of the humor in the adler-olsen books. ive heard good things about arne dahl.

I just read nightfall by David goodis and was entranced btw.

OH, SIMILAR STUFF!!!!!
goodis is great when he is great... shoot the piano player and black friday are both great ones.

i'm a big lawrence block fan, especially the novels about his alkie private detective Matt Scudder.
also a huge westlake/richard stark fan. the parker novels you have read, yes?

i'll look at my shelf when i get home.
i really enjoyed the four novels written by Gene Kerrigan about cops & lowlives in Ireland.

for heavier vibes i also liked "Autumn, All The Cats Return" by Phillipe Georget which deals a lot with the french/algerian war. (set in the present but with flashbacks etc.)

Granta in the UK recently put Sciascia's stuff all back into print in English translation. If you like crime fic and you haven't read Sciascia please do he is fucking amazing

i will look into that!

also i read a few of Manchette's novels last year, they were great.

I've heard about those books but could never find them, ty for the tip

re lawrence block I recently read 8 million ways to die and liked it, tried walk among the tombstones and couldn't get into it - what are the best scudders

i like 8 million ways to die a lot. that's one of my favorites. i recommend people start with "When The Sacred Gin Mill Closes" -- it was my first and hooked me hard.
I think a couple of the Manchettes were recently published in new translations via City Lights -- the Prone Gunman and uhhh.... one of the others.

Iirc the reason sciascia's name has been stuck for decades in my head as a 'look for' is because Calvino praises him in 'six memos for the next millennium'

I've read pair of stark's parkers (sparkers?): killtown (which is actually "the score" iirc?) and of course the hunter. Gotta read more. Killtown was ridiculous but amazing.

Got my dad a Kerrigan novel, I should look into him.

Read manchette's "3 to kill" and dang it was good. too bad about the movie adaptation of "the prone gunman".

Sciascia's "To each his own" is great. the ending is about as cheery as "the friends of eddie coyle".

Is Killtown the one where they blow up a whole town, more or less? My fave Parker novels are probably The Green Eagle Score, The Outfit, The Sour Lemon Score.. but I have time in my life for all of them. Even the ones he wrote after he resurrected the character many years later. My favorite NON-PARKER stark/westlake novels are probably... 357, Lemons Never Lie, and The Ax. The Ax is kind of the bleakest thing I've ever read. A black comedy so black as to be devastating.

The Hot Rock is also fun.

I've heard about those books but could never find them, ty for the tip

I found out about him quite by accident: finished the true-crime book I was reading while I was out of town and stopped by a local used book store to grab something else, found the Godine Double Detective volume of his from the 70s and got my mind blown - then I was working w/the Granta ppl (obligatory disclosure) and they sent me all these new paperback editions and I've been feasting on them. He is seriously incredible. highly recommend this one.

You might enjoy "Nobody's Angel" by Jack Clark. Originally self-published by a Chicago cab driver, later reprinted by Hard Case Crime. Pretty grim.

you know who I like generally is loren d estleman. whiskey river and the amos walker stuff I've read is good. motown was ok but for all its attempt at sweep felt a little thin.

Interesting, eccentric list with lots to check out, although some random choices that are not really the author's best (Black Dudley and Roger Ackroyd, for example).

No Ross Macdonald, no Elmore Leonard, no Richard Price, but... The Shining? I'm glad "Faithful Place" was there.

And ignores some great children's books (Westing Game, The Long Summer...)

I mean The Long Secret...

No Simenon seemed like a big omission to me, but maybe a case of someone having too many books and diluting the vote? I didn't read into the methodology.

A particular gap for me is that I'm really a complete n00b when it comes to the espionage stuff like le carre, ambler etc.

not surprised by the omissions tbh - mystery/thriller seems to be sort of perfecived as whodunnits and light detectiving etc - often seems to push “crime” into its own cul de sac when it comes to harder boiled stuff ie most of the good crime novels etc

Le Carre is great, definitely a bit more "gray" in terms of atmosphere and tone and character, in ways that one might find off-putting but for the milieu it works, a cold war where no one is fighting (not really) and no one feels comfortable saying what they mean, and you never know which friend will be one you can count on and which one wants you dead. i'm limited in my Ambler reading but A Coffin For Dimitrios is an amazing book, certainly espionage but it just has a this great, increasingly dangerous mystery to solve.

the modern espionage master is Alan Furst imo.

love Furst, have only read a couple tho

Ellroy is reading/speaking/bragging at the Mysterious Bookshop tonight, for any NYCers

Furst is brilliant for the first ~10 or so books, but his last few have been weirdly frictionless: sadly he's coasting.

I've read quite a few of these which were all great. Of the lesser known ones, I'll rep for Beast In View by Margaret Millar. Also In A Lonely Place which is quite different from the movie version and in my view better.

ZZ -- both of those are in the recent Library Of America "Women Crime Writers" set -- which, lucky for me, I just bought cheap. I really want to read In A Lonely Place, cuz I love the movie, and a friend of mine rates the book as significantly better.

I'll have to look at some Furst - any favorites or one of those things where it's best to try to start the beginning?

i've heard that about Furst, i don't think i've hit that point yet. i'm reading them in order and somehow have held off on the last few. I read Spies of the Balkans and thought it was sublime, but maybe hitting home more for its depiction of Thessaloniki, where my father-in-law was born and raised, and where he escaped, hid, was captured, and was almost sent to Auschwitz except for an 11th hour Schindler-like move from an Italian diplomat named Guelfo Zamboni, who extended him and his entire family provisional citizenship (not mentioned in the book, but the invasion made the story hit home, as a particular close call for my wife and son, especially when you see the numbers mentioned in that wiki entry.)

anyway for Furst, I would read them in order though Night Soldiers (the first novel in his ongoing espionage series) is more of a sprawling tale with more major characters, whereas the rest of the books tend to narrow their focus to a single lead character. Dark Star is the second one, i think his longest, and it's a really gripping near-epic. the rest tend to be between 200-300 pages iirc, and if i had to pick a favorite, it would be...really tough. I recommend reading them all. they're really rich and atmospheric, and just really satisfying reads. 100% perfect for fall and winter imo.

Yeah, read them in order if you can: though most stand completely on their own, there are recurring characters and locations made richer through doing it in sequence.

Just ordered Night Soldiers, I'd never even heard of Furth before

I still love the Stieg Larsson books, although he, and maybe the Swedes in general, have a weird fascination with coffee and sandwiches.

Also, if I remember right, drinking coffee just before they go to bed

Coffee and sandwiches rule.

nordic noir is an espresso at midnight

Yeah, weird list, tho I appreciate the attempt to expand the canon, and will definitely investigate some of the Asian crime fiction chosen. Wasn't wowed by some of the authors I have read here - Jo Nesbo, Lee Child (fun, but better than the Parker novels? nah) and Tana French (thought In The Woods was a massive cop-out with a far-too obvious murderer - see also The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo).

Have in the past found these lists useful for more trad stuff:

https://cozy-mystery.com/blog/mystery-writers-of-america-top-100-crime-novels-of-all-time/

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/123160.Top_100_Crime_Novels_by_British_CWA_

Ward, thank you for those. I liked Tana French but agree that I wasn’t compelled to read beyond “into the woods.” I did read maybe 5 or 6 of the lee child books, and they start fast and easy, but become bloated and full of endless gun talk.

Obviously, ever book from my personal list should be on here. Stark, Simenon, Block, Leonard, Bruen, Peace. Always nice to see a list and get the reality check that my tastes are still pretty niche. See also: any given spin or rolling stone list.

Purchase at the mystery bookstore, reprints all-
Fredric brown “madball” (carny crime)
Vera Caspary “the man who loved his wife” (psychosexual domestic thriller)
Paul conant “dr gatskill’s blue shoes” (amnesiac cop in the loony bin maybe killed somebody )

Ward, thank you for those. I liked Tana French but agree that I wasn’t compelled to read beyond “into the woods.” I did read maybe 5 or 6 of the lee child books, and they start fast and easy, but become bloated and full of endless gun talk.

Obviously, ever book from my personal list should be on here. Stark, Simenon, Block, Leonard, Bruen, Peace. Always nice to see a list and get the reality check that my tastes are still pretty niche. See also: any given spin or rolling stone list.

Purchase at the mystery bookstore, reprints all-
Fredric brown “madball” (carny crime)
Vera Caspary “the man who loved his wife” (psychosexual domestic thriller)
Paul conant “dr gatskill’s blue shoes” (amnesiac cop in the loony bin maybe killed somebody )

Broken Harbour and (especially) Faithful Place are both miles better than "Into the Woods" (and don't need to be read in order).

tana french is the best. in the woods is great and better than faithul place which feels to me like her most predictable, most conformist to genre tropes novel. Broken Harbor and The Witch Elm are my faves, but they're all eminently worth reading.

she needs to publish another book!

I think there's a sequel to The Searcher (which I haven't read) out soon

I will check out Wych Elm!

Yeah, there's a new French, The Hunter, coming in March.

Recent trend in library shop: Val McDermid's large tomes, looking suitable for walking around in, on Scottish police business and after hours. Blurbs from gen. reliable sources. Is she good? Can't decide from skimming.

Read one and didn’t swoon, haven’t returned

I think she's well regarded generally, she certainly seems to sell well - but I haven't read one either. For the Scottish crime fiction, I'm all about William McIlvanney's Laidlaw trilogy.

I read a couple of the Sam Ireland books by Jay Stringer set in Glasgow (Ways to Die in Glasgow and How to Kill Friends and Implicate People) and enjoyed them.

I read my first James Crumley: The Last Good Kiss. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I'm not going to deny his style, which alongside the references to Chandler also reminded me of Steinbeck in places. Crumley writes landscape beautifully and has a line in sentimentalising animals and women (while gleefully portraying the brutalisation of both!), but damn it was hokey in places - like Peckinpah directing Laurel and Hardy in that opening scene in the bar.

I need to feed my bulldog beer out of a hubcap and watch the stars wheel while I let it settle for a bit.

McDermid is a great interviewee but I'm still to read one of their books.

The Last Good Kiss is really good imo, but I never liked the ending, and it veers VERY CLOSE to the line of "too writerly" and self-consciously serious... imo. imo imo imo. I think Ross MacDonald comes a little close to him in that respect. I should read a MacDonald soon, it has been a while.

"too writerly" and self-consciously serious... imo

No, I can totally see this! There's a clash: between the human intelligence and heft of his writing and the cliches of the genre and all that entails. It's difficult not to wince in places.

I love film noir, read a lot of crime comics, but somehow in literature this stuff always takes a backseat for me, which is a shame as I'm sure there's plenty I'd adore. So to ring in Noirvember I'm gonna try to read one novel per week. Current line-up:

A Rage In Harlem, Chester Himes
Pop 1280, Jim Thompson
In A Lonely Place, Dorothy B. Hughes
A Leonardo Sciascia tbd

But I might have some train rides coming up as well so I prob could knock off another couple for those.

Sciascia is an interesting choice! I didn't love "Day Of The Owl" but I think I lacked a lot of context at the time I read it and would enjoy it more now. I loved "The Moro Affair" though that's more in the true crime arena. All those other three are A+ classics imo.

Daniel, re: comics -- have you read Stray Bullets? Best American comic imo, crime or otherwise.

Charles Willeford’s work is astounding. Pick-Up might have the greatest twist/gut punch ending I’ve ever encountered

Regarding Thompson, Pop. 1280 is absolutely hysterical

A Leonardo Sciascia tbd

Just so you know, Sciascia is far from the 'hard-boiled' genre so don't expect that. I'd recommend To Each His Own as the one I most enjoyed.

Sciascia is an interesting choice! I didn't love "Day Of The Owl" but I think I lacked a lot of context at the time I read it and would enjoy it more now. I loved "The Moro Affair" though that's more in the true crime arena.

I watched the movie version of Day Of The Owl the other day and it struck me how even though it's nowhere near film noir in its formal aspects - sunny Italian vistas, zero expressionism, no nighttime or rainy alleys - it v much epitomizes the noir worldview to me: society corrupt to the core, everyone is compromised, twists and turns, a protagonist who has no actual idea of what's going on and will not emerge victorious. Franco Nero, who plays the inspector, is obv perfect for that kind of role. Paradoxically this kind of bleak fatalist worldview is like comfort food for me - I once had a FAP conversation with user Tom D where I referred to Le Carré as "cozy" and he was understandably baffled by the suggestion but somehow to me it is.

Daniel, re: comics -- have you read Stray Bullets? Best American comic imo, crime or otherwise.

I have not! A friend of mine was big into it in the 00's though, need to check it out. The Brubaker/Philips team crank out pretty good hard boiled comics on the regular, if you haven't checked them out. Also really love the work of Jacques Tardi adapting French noir novelists.

3/4ths into the Himes: surprised that Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson play such a small role, and are afaict entirely unsympathetic - poor halpless Jackson and his crossdressing con artist twin Goldy elicit much more fondness. It's pretty damn full on I gotta say, with the extreme violence and everyone out for #1. I loved the scene with Jackson and the panhandler, the closest thing so far to solidarity.

I've also been playing Baldur's Gate 3 and while you wouldn't think there's any parallels there: the characters in the Himes novel only occasionally have guns, so there's a lot of hand to hand combat, much of it chaotic in a very d&d fashion; one fight takes place in a basement (dungeon!); and ppl get knocked out and recover at different times (saving throws!).

Yeah, the Day of the Owl movie is Film Soleil rather than Film Noir

tbf so is Point Blank!

To Each His Own is a great novel, and it ends on quite the note, both in terms of how the story ultimately concludes, and in terms of the implied behavior of secondary characters. i appreciate a take on the mafia which is almost entirely on the outside looking in, from the perspective of a civilian who is naive to the full extent of their evil. i like a good counterpoint to the usual; for example i enjoy a lot of the recent mafia/camorra shows from italy but the protagonists of almost all of them are so vile and the shows are so devoid of humor and indulging in such pitch-black tone that it can be p draining.

new James Ellroy The Enchanters is so good. the vibe is whiskey & dexadrine & no sleep for three days straight

I’m a Marilyn fan and did not expect to enjoy Ellroy’s dyspeptic version of her because, well, it’s Ellroy & it’s going to be gross. but the level of lore he’s woven in is nuts and I have to admit it’s almost classic-Ellroy level good. The amount of research it must have taken to be able to riff like this and resolve 75 plot threads cohesively? highwire shit. Hats off.

That being said I dunno if I could recommend it to anyone who isn’t already an Ellroy diehard. It prob won’t win him any new fans.

*dexedrine

also i read somewhere that Ellroy still writes all of his books longhand

Jordan Harper, She Rides Shotgun - solid B+, kind of feels like a novel cousin of that movie Shot Caller.

I saw a copy of that James Ellroy book at the library today but passed.

I like the Jordan Harper — apparently it was reissued in paperback under the title A Lesson In Violence, which is the edition I have. His kinda-sorta follow-up, The Last King Of California, is also really good.

I just read Tana French's latest, The Hunter, which is a sequel to her previous one. It's really good, and/but there's a character who'll have you literally tapping your foot going "Just fucking die already."

found Lady in the Lake (2019) by Laura Lippman a good read