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Malloreon posted:Anyone have recommendations for modern hardboiled detective stuff? I tried writing some myself, but I found that putting it in the present day sort of makes it lack something. Obviously people more talented than me can make it work. But hardboiled fiction always seemed the domain of dark alleys and payphones and the like.
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Jul 23, 2015 16:05
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Pink Robot Army posted:Has anyone read any of the 87th Precinct books by Ed McBain? I've heard them mentioned a lot of the same circles as the other big hardboiled authors, but there are so many, I've never known which were good and which were duds. Same kind of goes for the Scudder books by Lawrence Block. I like them. They're quick reads and serve as pretty great historical documents. And I think it's a really neat idea that he follows the life of the precinct. So characters will come and go, the main character in one book might get a line in the next one. People retire and people die. I don't think there's anything else quite like it. The only thing I will say is that it's best not to read many in a row. I tended to read in blocks of two and then after a few months off go at it again. It's just solid, no nonsense, stuff. The Scudder books are great though and well worth picking up. 'Eight Million Ways To Die' is probably where he first really nails it.
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Oct 13, 2015 12:51
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Pink Robot Army posted:Is it worth starting from the beginning? Or are there any gems in there? I think it's worth starting from the beginning. They're solidly written and all in all they're really quick reads. And you never know if someone introduced in one book will become important in the next (Or get killed). That said, it's not totally essential, but it's just my preferred way of reading them.
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Nov 16, 2015 14:05
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Heavy Metal posted:That sounds pretty dark, maybe a bit too dark for me, but I do plan to check out some of his other books. Speaking of Hard Case Crime books (that's published as one of them), any gems or personal favorites in that line? It looks like they throw in some new books too as well as classic reprints. Stuff like "Fade to Blonde" and whatnot, anybody dig any of these books? They seem pretty obscure, at least by GoodReads standards, only having a few hundred ratings on a lot of them. You can't really go wrong with anything from HCC, though the book that Gore Vidal wrote is a little hit or miss. MURDER IS MY BUSINESS is one I like a lot, and Shane Black has named it as a big influence on his own work, along with anything that Brett Halliday has written. The QUARRY series from Max Allan Collins is excellent and really anything from Lawrence Block is worth while. Though it doesn't quite suit the label, I thought that Stephen King's JOYLAND was very good. It's essentially a mystery with some supernatural stuff on the fringes. Maybe. I also love the covers they did for them and was tempted to get the variants just so I'd have the alternate art. On that note, I'd love some of them blown up and made into posters. What's awesome though is that HCC are about to release a new book from Westlake and it's a riff on Bond. He was approached by Bond producers to come up with a story, and it was set during the handover of Hong Kong. They never used it so Westlake turned it into a book but never got around to publishing it. I mean look at this, it screams 007: http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bios.cgi?entry=bk144
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Oct 1, 2016 16:53
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I could see that. I agree the first is the strongest. What I really liked is the way having a black P.I. inverts all the classic noir tropes -- hard-boiled detective, crooked cops who give the P.I. a beat down, so forth. So it's ringing the changes on classic tropes through a fresh lens. Plus, you get to see Los Angeles change over time, too, and that's a feature I really like in P.I. novels -- they're always half about setting and watching that setting change over the course of the series ( Manhattan for the Nero Wolfe books, Florida for Travis McGee,. etc.) The 57th precinct books and the Matthew Scudder series are great for that as well. Even though 57th precinct is set in a fictional city, it still very much has a time and place and part of the joy is ultimately watching that change. The Rawlins books are great for the same reason. To that end, has the same thing ever been done but with a woman at the centre?
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Oct 2, 2016 10:48
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 08:44 |
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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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