Detective/Noir Novels

[DB Cooper]

This is a genre I know little to nothing about, but have become interested in recently. Looking for any recommendations you would care to offer. So far those that look most interesting to me are Dashiell Hammett, Jim Thompson, or maybe Charlie Huston.

[Eric]

Could someone narrowly define "noir", so that we can distinguish between it and crime or horror novels? The term seems to be newsih, and I have never quite grasped its meaning.

[Galatea92]

Could someone narrowly define "noir", so that we can distinguish between it and crime or horror novels? The term seems to be newsih, and I have never quite grasped its meaning.

It's not so newish. The term "noir" is short for "film noir", which was a term coined in 1946 (by the French critic Nino Frank according to my Wikipedia source). The term "noir" in written crime fiction refers to the kind of books that were adapted for films commonly described as "film noir", such as the novels of Dashiell Hammet, Raymond Chandler, James M Cain, and other less talented pulp writers.

The Wikipedia page on Film Noir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir) should provide you with more than enough information.

[Eric]

Thanks, Galatea. I do note that the Wikipedia article spends three longish paragraphs on the subject of: Problems of Definition. So it's not just me that's being awkward. It is obviously a problem for other people too.

It looks as if the "noir" was originally a physical atribute, involving the film light, but then, when attached to novels, took the crime and detection aspect, plus the slight sleaze of the people involved.

Maybe "neo-noir" and the parodies are, however, a noir too far.

[accidie]

Thompson and Cain, certainly. I've not read any of Simenon's Maigret novels, but his romans durs are worth reading. From Switzerland, land of the hard-boiled cuckoo clock and noir chocolate, Blue Beard by Max Frisch and several by Durrenmatt: The Pledge is possibly most akin to film noir.
The Assignment, also by Durrenmatt, is outstandingly good, though its bleakness lies in atmosphere and incident rather than a sparse tough-guy writing style.

[Daniel del Real]

Strange that no one has mentioned Chesterton and this Father Brown chronicles. I love them all, specially the first volume The Innocence of Father Brown. Really clever stories that keep you in the edge of the chair (or from wherever you're reading it)

[LRiley]

There doesn't seem to be a settled definition--at least there are so many different definitions of what 'noir' exactly is. Whether it's a separate category all together from crime fiction--for example. There are gray areas but my definition is it's beyond the usual fare of the murder mystery--whether police investigations or not. Noirs are darker and have more sinister pathological or sociological elements and/or sometimes even political applications to them. IMO they don't necessarily exclude police or crime novels.

Some novels of Dostoyevesky like The Possessed could fit. Certainly Arlt's Seven Madmen. And I love Manchette. They would be examples of what I would (or in Dostoyevsky's case sometimes would) call noir.

[JPS]

The French have a genre called roman noir, which is more or less the equivalent of the 1940s/50s film genre. Simenon's romans durs (i.e. non-Maigret) would fit in this category, as would novels by my friend Ren? Belletto, the great Jean-Patrick Manchette, the author known as ADG, and pretty much any of the authors on Gallimard's Serie Noire list of books.

[SlowRain]

Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther novels. The first three--March Violets, The Pale Criminal, and A German Requiem--are collected together in one volume called Berlin Noir. He has since written two (three?) more. They all center around a private investigator in Germany just before and after World War Two. I've read the Berlin Noir collection, but not the others. The narrative is sharp and witty, but I only really enjoyed the plot of the first one. The other two were just okay.

[saliotthomas]

This all nuance now.Noir,grey,dark grey,....crime,hard boiled,mystery,...and so on.If you think of it,even some of Agatha Chirtie is pritty dark,like Ten little soldier boy.
More to the point is good or bad,well written or not.
I like the genre a lot but not too much the investigation side of it.Like bloody cluedo,guess who did it and so on, does not appeal to me(or it has to be really well done)
I don't want to start a polemic but i think this is one of the genre that has the most deffine sex cleavage.We read mostly the same books with my spouse but when it comes to crime we take different path.
She goes for PD James,Ruth Rendell,Patricia Corwell,ect..in which i have very little interest.
I'm more Pellecanos,Stark/Westlake,Hammett,MacDonald,Richard Price,Larry Brown,Mcbain,Block,ect...
Funny how there it's very clear border,we even read same Fantasy or Scifi,but crime not,back to segregation.

[john h]

I don't read that many mysteries but someone who is pretty entertaining is the American writer James Crumley. I think he died a while back. I understand he's pretty popular in France. I particularly enjoyed "The Wrong Case" by him.

[LRiley]

Though I'm not sure I'd put Chester Himes as a noir writer--he at least was on the periphery of that and is an interesting writer--mixing black humor in with very gritty street level scenes--and anything can happen with him. A major character can just go down the toilet without any preparation for the reader. He keeps you on your toes.

Is Leonardo Sciascia noir? I think if you can't automatically answer yes--you're thinking no but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot to be said for Sciascia's fiction. It's as much that the writer creates a kind of sinister nighmarish atmosphere but one that strikes home as hypothetically real to the reader. Some of the Scandianavians today are also quite good--and at least off his first book I would tend to qualify Johan Theorin for one as a noir writer--maybe Jo Nesbo. The Northern Irish writer Eoin McNamee (who also writers young adult novels) is definitely noir in Resurrection Man, The Ultras, Blue Tango and his re-creation of Diana's death--12:23 Paris, 31st August 1997.

[DB Cooper]

Im getting an advance copy of Sleepless: A Novel by Charlie Huston to review. Definitely not my first choice but I suppose it will have to do for now.

[saliotthomas]

Im getting an advance copy of Sleepless: A Novel by Charlie Huston to review. Definitely not my first choice but I suppose it will have to do for now.

I got Already dead from him, on your advice.
And 3 Elmore Leonard ,City primeval,Tishomingo blues,and freaky deaky.

[Heteronym]

Strange that no one has mentioned Chesterton and this Father Brown chronicles. I love them all, specially the first volume The Innocence of Father Brown. Really clever stories that keep you in the edge of the chair (or from wherever you're reading it)

It's not strange at all; conversation here has degraded into definitions of noir, which for me is detective stories without brains. Tough guys, sexy dames and extreme violence. In between fistfights and guns ablazing, an alcoholic detective or nobody uses his few grey cells to solve something. It's great in movies, but dull in words.

Give me the charming, witty paradoxes of Chesterton or Edmund Crispin, or the middle-class murders of Agatha Christie, where deduction, and not booze, is the center of the story :)

[saliotthomas]

It's not strange at all; conversation here has degraded into definitions of noir, which for me is detective stories without brains. Tough guys, sexy dames and extreme violence. In between fistfights and guns ablazing, an alcoholic detective or nobody uses his few grey cells to solve something. It's great in movies, but dull in words.

Give me the charming, witty paradoxes of Chesterton or Edmund Crispin, or the middle-class murders of Agatha Christie, where deduction, and not booze, is the center of the story :)

Sure.
Obviously you never read crime stories and the caricature you draw has as much grey cells as what's you critic is aim at.
As alway very deffinitive and judgemental Hetero like truth about literature shine out of your .......and the "smiley" does not make it any better.
Thanks you very much.
I like a lot some of Agatha Christie but not a much of Chesterton and the cluedo side of some of the investigation does get boring sometime.
A bit of an old lady reading.You should give a go to Ellis Peters then,tea cats and murder,spot on.
Booze and sex does give some spice to investigation sometime and it takes all to make the genre interesting and divers.
Some pages of Weslake Parkers are anthology to me,as well as some of his stand out novel.
To resume "good" and "of quality" crime novel to three authors mean you despise the genre and your can very well avoid coming down with this pompus and arrogant statement.
Oh i forgot :)

[Heteronym]

The hardboiled school of detective writing didn't give the detective novel anything good, but created a platform for some amazing movies. Chandler, Thomson, Hammett and their followers could provide the atmosphere and the action, but the mysteries and deductive processes in their novels lacked elegance, wit and complexity. The booze and sex was just there to distract the reader from their simplicity :)

[saliotthomas]

Amen..

What about Chester Himes,Ed McBain,John Mcdonald,Richard Stark,Pelecanos,Manchette,Westlake,Ellroy?

Macho braindead literature,manly man books,forest ranger novels with simple idea and easy triggers to there instict.The favorites of John Waine and Ronald Reagan.

I bet you read a Chandler,and like so often here, became automaticaly an expert.
Amen again.
This film thing happen a lot with The name of the rose, the film created a lot of instant Eco specialist.

[accidie]

The hardboiled school of detective writing didn't give the detective novel anything good, but created a platform for some amazing movies. Chandler, Thomson, Hammett and their followers could provide the atmosphere and the action, but the mysteries and deductive processes in their novels lacked elegance, wit and complexity. The booze and sex was just there to distract the reader from their simplicity :)
At the risk of further degrading the discussion I'd like to suggest that it might make matters clearer for you if you thought of Chesterton, Christie, et al. as mystery writers and hardboiled writers as--well, hardboiled. If the 'detective' element is omitted, it might be easier to see that the noir writers had no apparent thought of contributing to, never mind improving upon, the Miss Marple tradition.
What strikes me most about film noir is the movies' atmosphere, not the notion of Barbara Stanwyck knocking back a bottle of booze before walloping a man. What strikes me most about the romans noirs I've enjoyed reading (not many) are the atmosphere and the examination of character, in both senses of the word.

[Jayaprakash]

In a noir, it's a certain dark, sordid yet alluring atmosphere that counts more than the logical solution of a problem. I seem to like both - I enjoy Hammett and Chandler as well as Christie, Chesterton, Sayers and so forth.

For those inclined to try something different, Isaac Asimov wrote a number of excellent mystery stories in the puzzles-logically-solved vein collectively known as the Black Widower Mysteries. There is no action, no on-stage crime - the whole thing consists of a series of conversations at dinner during the course of which a mystery is discussed, examined and solved. They are sort of the Platonic ideal of the mystery story.

Dorothy L. Sayers' Peter Wimsey novels are wonderful - like Wodehouse writing a Christie. Elegant, witty and clever.

On a more noirish note, Simenon's Maigret novels combine the virtues of excellence and brevity.

[Jayaprakash]

The hardboiled school of detective writing didn't give the detective novel anything good, but created a platform for some amazing movies. Chandler, Thomson, Hammett and their followers could provide the atmosphere and the action, but the mysteries and deductive processes in their novels lacked elegance, wit and complexity. The booze and sex was just there to distract the reader from their simplicity :)

I believe that the classical detective story is as fantastic as any sword and sorcery epic - the fact is that mysteries are rarely amenable to solution simply by the exercise of a sharp mind and a keen eye. Having said that, I enjoy them as much as you do.

But.

Hammett and Chandler at least did not merely portray boozed-up toughs slugging each other. Marlowe is a man in a certain position, who sees the limitations of who he is and the environment he lives in. I think the line in THE BIG SLEEP in which he is playing out a chess problem in his apartment and realises that 'this was not a game for knights' is a very telling statement. Hammett's style is less scintillating but there are moments amongst all the romanticised grime that shine through - I am thinking of the anecdote about the man who lives town, tries to change his entire life and then ends up living in a town much like the one he left, married to a woman much like the wife he left, that Spade tells Brigid at one point in THE MALTESE FALCON. It seems to have no direct bearing to the plot (and what a glorious farrago the plot is!), but it resonates on further consideration.

I find much to enjoy both in classic puzzle-mysteries and noir; what I can't quite sink my teeth into are the police procedurals.

[DB Cooper]

I agree with Jayaprakash that police procedural type books hold absolutely no interest for me. Im more intrigued by the dark and atmospheric works that have lots of twists and turns. I usually have a steady diet of literary fiction but its good to mix in a little genre fiction for a change of pace, as there are some very talented writers in almost any genre you would chose to indulge. Well, maybe not the brooding teenage vampire trend but I cant speak with any authority on that.

[slim jenkins]

You mean you don't read teenage vampire novels? :eek: You really are missing out on the evolution of an essential new genre...;)

Re the original question, I'd say if you're on the trail of Jim Thompson you're gathering essential information for the solving of this case. Try 'The Killer Inside Me'.

David Goodis is worth investigating...James M Cain too - they're not detective novels but Cain, especially, is hardboiled (hardboiled being related to 'noir', of course).

Pulp fanatics and publishers are always trying to resurrect either a 'lost classic' or 'unknown' author and although their efforts are admirable and sometimes probably worthwhile from my experience there are few to match the recognised leaders in this field.

Some read crime novels for plot intricacy, construction, development etc and others like the police procedural or anatomical complexities of the autopsy...me, I like style (and there are none more stylish than Chandler) and guns, lots of guns...and dames...and the dark desperation of a man or woman trapped in the headlights of their own sordid destiny...something like that.

Oh, by the way, I'm not greatly offended but I don't like the differentiation between 'literary' work and the crime genre....you know, it's frequently done, but smacks of a feeling of superiority on behalf of readers and writers of dull excercises in middle-class intellectual masturbation...;)

[Jayaprakash]

Oh, by the way, I'm not greatly offended but I don't like the differentiation between 'literary' work and the crime genre....you know, it's frequently done, but smacks of a feeling of superiority on behalf of readers and writers of dull excercises in middle-class intellectual masturbation...;)

The existence of forums like this is itself a paean to the popularity of the onanist imperative you mention. (Mea maxima culpa and all that, of course).

Like all genre labels, crime or detective fiction promises readers a little something extra - the excitement of rubbing up against the dark side of human nature, or perhaps the thrill of watching a puzzle being solved - in addition to all the things we expect from any form of literature.

[beelzebubbles]

Slim Jenkins

Oh, by the way, I'm not greatly offended but I don't like the differentiation between 'literary' work and the crime genre....you know, it's frequently done, but smacks of a feeling of superiority on behalf of readers and writers of dull excercises in middle-class intellectual masturbation...;)Jayaprakash

The existence of forums like this is itself a paean to the popularity of the onanist imperative you mention. (Mea maxima culpa and all that, of course).
Meh. It's more like a circle jerk.

I like a lot of female mystery writers. Here are a few ranged in order from the least to the most campy.

Leading the pack Dorothy Sayers.

Lauren Henderson has a noir feel with her hard-boiled sculptress/detective, Sam Jones.

Sparkle Hayter--her real name is Pouce Coupe, which I think I should adopt as my nom de plume; it sounds as likely as Sparkle Hayter and no her name is not a response to the Twilight series--writes wittily about the adventures of Robin Hudson, reporter.

Sarah Strohmeyer writes about the adventures of Bubbles Yablonsky, beautician/community college student/reporter. Bubbles would be my neighbor if it weren't for lack of incarnation. She lives in Lehigh, Pennsylvania.

[Bottle Rocket]

Originally Posted by beelzebubbles

Sparkle Hayter--her real name is Pouce Coupe, which I think I should adopt as my nom de plume; it sounds as likely as Sparkle Hayter and no her name is not a response to the Twilight series--writes wittily about the adventures of Robin Hudson, reporter.Boy, is she ever a piece of work!! I encountered her when I was writing promo copy for one of her mysteries.

Sort of a cross between a crazy cat lady and a demented PR person, plus way too much rouge. But nice.


:) BRocket :)

[beelzebubbles]

Originally Posted by beelzebubbles
Boy, is she ever a piece of work!! I encountered her when I was writing promo copy for one of her mysteries.

Sort of a cross between a crazy cat lady and a demented PR person, plus way too much rouge. But nice.


:) BRocket :)

She sounds like my kind of woman.

[tiesitko]

Originally Posted by beelzebubbles
Boy, is she ever a piece of work!! I encountered her when I was writing promo copy for one of her mysteries.

Sort of a cross between a crazy cat lady and a demented PR person, plus way too much rouge. But nice.


:) BRocket :)

I am surprised!we meet her for dinner tonight and hosted her and her friend two years ago.She was quiet funny and washed all our dishes! Did not wear makeup except in evening.She was travelling with an Indian man not a cat, hee, they were working for an ngo as I remember.

[krsameer]

i loved ken bruen's 'bust'...its the only 'noir' i have read..and its great..