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While I liked LA Confidential, I also found it overstuffed and overall enjoyed The Big Nowhere a lot more. The Black Dahlia and White Jazz, the series bookends, I actively disliked.
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Apr 12, 2017 04:14
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Same here. I kind of wonder why is The Big Nowhere the one that usually gets glazed over - Black Dahlia and LA Confidential are famous and White Jazz gets infamy for the almost comprehensible style it's written in. But I think that as a story, TBN is easily the best of the bunch.
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Apr 12, 2017 18:56
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The new Bernie Günther is out!
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Apr 19, 2017 16:48
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Has anyone else read the Robert Galbraith books Rowling wrote? Not terribly noir-ish but, overall very solid detective novels with some pretty likable characters.
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Apr 19, 2017 19:52
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servo106 posted:Has anyone else read the Robert Galbraith books Rowling wrote? Not terribly noir-ish but, overall very solid detective novels with some pretty likable characters. I read the first two, enjoyed the case in the first one more. I definitely appreciate her ability to make an interesting and likable detective duo.
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Apr 20, 2017 01:56
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A lot of deserved love on this thread for Chandler and Phillip Marlowe, but no love for Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer? Kiss Me Deadly, both the film and the novel, are fantastic. 
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Apr 20, 2017 03:17
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servo106 posted:Has anyone else read the Robert Galbraith books Rowling wrote? Not terribly noir-ish but, overall very solid detective novels with some pretty likable characters. The first two are quite good. The third has a fundamental structural problem that makes it quite dull. The slowly developing realtionship between the two main characters is the best part about the books, and the only good part, I felt, about the third. Tommy_Udo posted:A lot of deserved love on this thread for Chandler and Phillip Marlowe, but no love for Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer? Kiss Me Deadly, both the film and the novel, are fantastic. I really like Hammer (at least, the good early ones), and have posted about them a couple of times in passing. Oddly enough, I didn't care for the movie, which definitely puts me in the minority. I found it merely watchable. Xotl fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Apr 20, 2017 |
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Apr 20, 2017 05:19
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servo106 posted:Has anyone else read the Robert Galbraith books Rowling wrote? Not terribly noir-ish but, overall very solid detective novels with some pretty likable characters. I liked the first two, but the third was hard to get through (Despite being hilariously trashy and lurid). And Robin's boyfriend is just the worst character.
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Apr 21, 2017 23:04
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Xotl posted:While I liked LA Confidential, I also found it overstuffed and overall enjoyed The Big Nowhere a lot more. The Black Dahlia and White Jazz, the series bookends, I actively disliked. Oh I can definitely see L.A. Confidential as overstuffed. The whole like serial killer subplot and Vincennes backstory added like at least a hundred paged to an already packed book. I think I'll check out his other works just because of how engrossing L.A. Confidential was.
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Apr 27, 2017 09:13
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I can't stop reading Charlie Huston. Im on book 3 of the "Joe Pitt Casebooks" and putting off my backlog of Chandler, Hammet, etc. He is just too fun. I can't believe they didn't make this into a tv series or something? Sad to hear there is only 5 books though.
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Apr 29, 2017 20:00
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Mr. Kurtz posted:Oh I can definitely see L.A. Confidential as overstuffed. The whole like serial killer subplot and Vincennes backstory added like at least a hundred paged to an already packed book. I think I'll check out his other works just because of how engrossing L.A. Confidential was. As a general rule, Ellroy gets more and more intense and elaborate in his novels. It's not strictly necessary, but reading his stuff in publication order lets you know when you've hit your limit  As for me idk if im gonna read any more. But I've loved everything I've read.
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Apr 30, 2017 06:19
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rocket_man38 posted:I can't stop reading Charlie Huston. Im on book 3 of the "Joe Pitt Casebooks" and putting off my backlog of Chandler, Hammet, etc. He is just too fun. I can't believe they didn't make this into a tv series or something? Sad to hear there is only 5 books though. Have you read his Henry Thompson trilogy? They probably fall into the "gritty noir" side of things, but they are still good for bleak gritty crime novels. The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death is pretty good as well. Both the Thompson trilogy and the last one fall into real world and avoid the supernatural stuff going on with Pitt. Still fun reads though. I like Huston's stuff for the most part and hope he's still writing. Dude hasn't released anything in 4 years.
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May 1, 2017 21:02
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rocket_man38 posted:I can't stop reading Charlie Huston. Im on book 3 of the "Joe Pitt Casebooks" and putting off my backlog of Chandler, Hammet, etc. He is just too fun. I can't believe they didn't make this into a tv series or something? Sad to hear there is only 5 books though. Caught Stealing from the Henry Thompson stuff has been optioned for a movie, though there's not too much info, so who knows. I'm not sure what they'd do with Pitt. Huston is just a fun read. They have a real breakneck pace going on.
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May 1, 2017 21:15
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Ben Nevis posted:Caught Stealing from the Henry Thompson stuff has been optioned for a movie, though there's not too much info, so who knows. I'm not sure what they'd do with Pitt. The characters and setting of the Pitt books would suffer with a 2 hour movie in my opinion, but Netflix (or something comparable) would be a perfect home for that series. One book per season?
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May 2, 2017 14:59
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hatelull posted:The characters and setting of the Pitt books would suffer with a 2 hour movie in my opinion, but Netflix (or something comparable) would be a perfect home for that series. One book per season? That is what i was thinking. Like 3 90 minute episodes or something. It would be hard to turn into a procedural show unless they expanded the universe.
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May 2, 2017 15:41
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Sightly different from Hardboiled I know but does anyone know if anything in the Storybundle Noir bundle is any good?
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May 11, 2017 07:03
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Almost done with the Bosch/Haller/McCaleb books from Michael Connelly. Someone earlier mentioned Ian Rankin and the Rebus series so I guess I'll look there next. I also really enjoyed Sandford's books, especially Virgil Flowers. This may be getting more into airport fiction territory but what else should I be checking out in this vein? I've, of course, also read all the Reacher books. Dang, I forgot about the Charlie Parker series from John Connolly - I read Every Dead Thing years ago and liked it. That should keep me busy for awhile. Kaddish fucked around with this message at 16:12 on May 11, 2017 |
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May 11, 2017 16:05
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Brief update: I'm not sure John Connolly is a very good writer.....especially coming from a Michael Connelly and Sandford stint.
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May 21, 2017 19:30
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try Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder series.
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May 22, 2017 00:39
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I started out reading the Spenser novels, by Robert Parker a couple years ago, and I've been steadily plowing through them. They started out so good! I finished Rough Weather, which is book number 36, a few weeks ago, and man. They have not been good for a while. I'm probably going to skip number 37, which is the Young Spenser novel, and then I think I've just got like three more that he published before he died, and I'm really just reading them out of obligation at this point. I am definitely not going to continue with the Ace Atkins stuff that's been published after Parker died. If I were doing it over again, I'd probably just pretend Parker died after like, Pastime. At the time, I really wanted to read the series up to Hundred Dollar Baby to see how April Kyle turns out, and then after I did that it felt like I was so close to the end that I should just stick with it. Learn from my mistakes, everybody.
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May 24, 2017 03:47
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Gargamel Gibson posted:The new Bernie Günther is out! I just finished Prussian Blue. Pretty enjoyable and rather bleak, even for a Gunther novel. Thankfully, it returns to (mostly) being set in Nazi-era Germany, rather than the mid-50s South of France of The Other Side of Silence.
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May 24, 2017 15:38
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Ok, I'm going to check out Parker and Block as soon as I finish the latest Virgil Flowers book. I like how dark the John Connolly books are but man, I'm just not digging his writing style. He's very guilty of the whole blatant foreshadowing trope of, "...and it was the last time I ever saw him alive." Also, it seemed like the first book especially tread the supernatural line very well in that the elements were there but more in the background. It's clear the books are heading are bit too far into Dresden territory to scratch the straight detective itch. Kaddish fucked around with this message at 22:00 on May 25, 2017 |
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May 25, 2017 21:57
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Kaddish posted:I like how dark the John Connolly books are but man, I'm just not digging his writing style. He's very guilty of the whole blatant foreshadowing trope of, "...and it was the last time I ever saw him alive." Also, it seemed like the first book especially tread the supernatural line very well in that the elements were there but more in the background. It's clear the books are heading are bit too far into Dresden territory to scratch the straight detective itch. He gets better about the foreshadowing thing, but it never goes away entirely. The supernatural stuff is present but doesn't get really big until book 12 or so, but even then most of the threats are still plain ol' terrible human beings. Even the blatantly supernatural characters are still susceptible to a bullet. That said, if you aren't digging it, no reason to keep plugging away.
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May 25, 2017 22:06
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Coca Koala posted:I started out reading the Spenser novels, by Robert Parker a couple years ago, and I've been steadily plowing through them. They started out so good! I had the same type of experience with James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheuix novels. They're such great well-written noir detective novels, with characters and a place(in this case a Louisiana very reminiscent of True Detective's first season, down to having mild supernatural elements and all) you become very attached to. But, oh boy, do they overstay their welcome after a certain point. I remember reading one of the later novels in the series and thinking "I already read this one, but how, it just came out". I swear the author had to be so obviously not giving a gently caress anymore that he was just copying whole plots and relationship arcs from earlier, better books. He also just froze the main characters' development and aging at a certain point, but didn't do the same for the world they live in, so it feels very weird to have two guys who have Vietnam flashbacks and must be in their 70s at the least still solving cases by just kicking rear end and intimidating everyone involved. I think they may have gotten some of the "grumpy old author" syndrome too, where the main character too often blatantly acted as a mouthpiece for what the author hates about the modern world(ugh, that last Dennis Lehane Kenzie/Gennaro one is terrible for this too). I loved that series too, they were automatic reads for me whenever a new one was released. I still highly recommend any noir or crime lit reading fan to read them til you get to your own burn out point. Mine was probably a book or two after he touched on Hurricane Katrina in them. I thought the one set during the hurricane was probably the last one worth reading, where Burke was actually invested in what he was writing. I haven't read any of the Ace Atkins' Parker books, but he's a good crime author when writing his own, original IP. His Quinn Colson series has been great so far, I know I've recommendeed it itt before. He's also written some historical crime fiction that've gotten some acclaim. I know I have a copy of his one centered around the Fatty Arbuckle case that has Dashiell Hammett as a main character when he was with the Pinkertons I still have to read.
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Jun 13, 2017 20:44
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savinhill posted:I had the same type of experience with James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheuix novels. They're such great well-written noir detective novels, with characters and a place(in this case a Louisiana very reminiscent of True Detective's first season, down to having mild supernatural elements and all) you become very attached to. But, oh boy, do they overstay their welcome after a certain point. I remember reading one of the later novels in the series and thinking "I already read this one, but how, it just came out". I swear the author had to be so obviously not giving a gently caress anymore that he was just copying whole plots and relationship arcs from earlier, better books. He also just froze the main characters' development and aging at a certain point, but didn't do the same for the world they live in, so it feels very weird to have two guys who have Vietnam flashbacks and must be in their 70s at the least still solving cases by just kicking rear end and intimidating everyone involved. I think they may have gotten some of the "grumpy old author" syndrome too, where the main character too often blatantly acted as a mouthpiece for what the author hates about the modern world(ugh, that last Dennis Lehane Kenzie/Gennaro one is terrible for this too). I loved that series too, they were automatic reads for me whenever a new one was released. I still highly recommend any noir or crime lit reading fan to read them til you get to your own burn out point. Mine was probably a book or two after he touched on Hurricane Katrina in them. I thought the one set during the hurricane was probably the last one worth reading, where Burke was actually invested in what he was writing. I came into James Lee Burke's work at a weird point. The first I read was Wayfaring Stranger. Then, I read Neon Rain, and just started with Heaven's Prisoners. I'm a detective author as well, and the way JLB writes those early books is inspiring. Anyway, I heard rumors that his daughter writes/has written his later books, but who knows?
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Jun 30, 2017 17:09
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Borneo Jimmy posted:Anybody here familiar with Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm books? (Not the movies) I know they're spy fiction but the style is closer to John MacDonald than John Le Carre. I know I'm quoting a three-year-old post but the Matt Helm books are incredible and I really wish someone had done interviews with him before he died as I could go either way on whether he made Helm a sociopath on purpose or if he just thought that was a reasonable way for a person to behave. I picked one of his books up on aquarium because I love pulp the detective/adventure/spy novels I was absolutely blown away at how well drawn the character is. I ended up buying the rest of them off of eBay and while they are formulaic a poo poo, it is a very satisfying formula. Or really suck me in is just how realistic everything seems. Like obviously I have no firsthand knowledge of the world of espionage but everything is so gritty and just plausible. It's helped that the author wrote for gun magazines so the little technical details about firearms are absolutely perfect without going into idiotic gear porn. I've honestly considered trying to see if I can get my copy of the series digitized as everything is long out of print and my paperbacks are starting to fall apart since I've loaned the series out a couple times. At the very least I'm going to buy a second set of all the novels as a personal archive as it seems like I go through and reread them all every couple of years. As for hard-boiled detective fiction, I grew up listening to old radio shows at my local NPR station used to play a couple of hours of every night and started reading the Hammet/Chandler novels in high school. I still end up re-reading them all the time, a never-ending cycle of rumpled suits, strong coffee and what I presume is very lovely whiskey.
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Jul 1, 2017 21:45
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