Entries from Westport Public Library BOOK blog tagged with 'hardboiled'
Hardboiled Connecticut?
The noir form will be more than adequately represented at the upcoming Murder 203 event by authors Reed Farrel Coleman, Peter Spiegelman and Jason Starr.
The New York Times Book Review reported that "Among the undying conventions of detective fiction is the one that requires every retired cop to have a case that still haunts him. Reed Farrel Coleman blows the dust off that cliche." Publisher’s Weekly called Peter Spiegelman “one of today's best practitioners of neo-noir." Jason Starr has eight non-series novels to his credit, including the award winning Twisted City, and he collaborates with writer Ken Bruen on a series for Hard Case Crime. His book The Follower was dubbed “this generation's Looking for Mr. Goodbar.” So don’t let the name Murder 203 fool you. We’re not just about suburban mysteries! There will be lots of talk about crime in the big city and one of our panels will address how urban crime differs from suburban crime. Check the Murder 203 website for registration information.Hammers and Spades
Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer is back in town after a twelve-year hiatus and caught up in his biggest – and most dangerous – case ever. The Goliath Bone pits Hammer against Al-Qaeda, Homeland Security, the FBI, Mossad, an Israeli vigilante group and a megalomaniac theatrical impresario, who are all scrabbling for a priceless artifact – a thigh bone whose owner stood over ten feet tall, recently unearthed in the Valley of Elah. And Sam Spade – “the blonde Satan” – will return in February, 2009, in Joe Gores’s Spade and Archer, the authorized prequel to Dashiell Hammett’s classic, The Maltese Falcon.Bloody Brits
A recent Publishers Weekly issue was devoted to the British mystery. The Brits have taken a decidedly noir turn. Scottish crime writer Val McDermid says “We have the rope of Agatha around our necks … we want to write about the society we live in and the Agatha Christie formula doesn’t work anymore.”A classy case of mistaken identity
Acclaimed Irish novelist and journalist – and Man Booker Prize winner – John Banville is better known to mystery fans as his noir writing alter-ego Benjamin Black. His two mystery novels to date, Christine Falls and the recently released The Silver Swan are darkly set in 1950s Dublin and both feature pathologist-cum-detective Garret Quirke. Sarah Dunant, author of many international literary fiction bestsellers, including The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan, is also a writer of hard-boiled detective fiction. Her character, Hannah Wolfe, is a private investigator in London.Thrilling detectives
Have you visited thethrillingdetective.com, the internet's most popular crime-fiction site? Among many other terrific features, it has an A-Z listing of “everything you ever wanted to know about private eyes & other tough guys ... listed by character, with all appearances in novels, short stories, film, television, radio and other media.” According to thrillingdetective, Rick Riordan’s fictional detective, Tres Navarre “… is many things -- an unlicensed TexMex private eye, a tequila drinker, tai chi master and an outcast from Academia with a PhD in medieval studies.” The first Tres Navarre mystery, Big Red Tequila (1997) managed to hit the bestseller lists, and even win a Shamus for Best First P.I. Novel. To date, there are seven titles in the series. Along with his enchilada-eating cat and many other colorful characters, Navarre explores the dangerous, dark, and often bizarre back streets of San Antonio, Texas.An author of interest
Theresa Schwegel’s latest book, A Person of Interest, reinforces her position as one of today's top authors of hard-boiled police procedurals. A Person of Interest is set in Chicago – her hometown – where detective Craig McHugh is working undercover to bust a powerful Chinese gang that traffics in heroin. Meanwhile, his teenage daughter, Ivy, is caught with a small amount of ecstasy, and his wife, convinced he's having an affair, begins flirting with Ivy's boyfriend. Schwegel deftly weaves these three subplots together. Her vivid characterizations of a family in crisis elevate the story beyond the crime thriller and into the realm of the literary novel.Skullduggery
I am not a big fan of noir or hard-boiled mysteries, although I will pick one up from time to time on someone’s recommendation. I found James Crumley that way. Someone told me that reading his books was like reading Steinbeck. I tried them and I was smitten. So, the best possible recommendation you can make for books that tend to be a bit on the dark side is to promise me that it will read like Crumley. A recent review for Craig Macdonald’s Head Games did just that.Pulp fiction
Walter Satterthwait’s new crime novel Dead Horse is based on the mysterious death of Raoul Whitfield’s second wife Emily.
Although it was ruled a suicide, the book is built around its somewhat questionable circumstances.
Hard-boiled pulp writer Whitfield was the highest paid mystery writer in America in the 1920s and is believed to be Dashiell Hammett’s model for Nick Charles.
John March roars in like a lion
John March is back in his third gritty mystery, Red Cat.
Hard Case Crime
From World War II through the 1960s, paperback hard-boiled crime novels were one of the best-selling book publishing genres.
They were written by well-known authors such as Erle Stanley Gardner and Mickey Spillane as well as by promising young writers including Lawrence Block, Elmore Leonard, and Donald Westlake.
This literary form has been resurrected by the Hard Case Crime series, which includes lost masterpieces as well as new novels by today's hot new writers, all complete with stunning original cover art in the grand pulp style.
North Korea, hard-boiled
In a starred Publishers Weekly review James Church’s A Corpse in the Koryo is heralded as “an impressive debut that calls to mind such mystery thrillers as Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park.”
Against the backdrop of totalitarian North Korea, Police Inspector O is called in when the government becomes desperate to hunt down and eliminate anyone who knows too much about a series of decades-old kidnappings and murders.
Feed Subscription
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries tagged 'hardboiled'. [What is this?]
