"Hardboiled Fiction"

[Yerdaddy]

I haven't read much fiction in the last 10 years or so. When I can't bear any more non-fiction I've read mostly Elmore Leonard, who is in the genre of "hardboiled fiction." So my question is: of the other authors of the genre listed here, (that I pulled from the "Noir Files" feature of the Reservoir Dogs DVD), what has anyone else read, and which do you recommend?

Raymond Chandler
Eddie Bunker
James McCain
James Ellroy
David Goodis
Dashiell Hammett
George V. Higgins
Charles Willeford
Elmore Leonard
Ross McDonald
Mickey Spillane
Richard Stark
Jim Thompson
Cornell Woolrich
Donald Westlake
Lionel White

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[Mike Teacher]

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Um; I recognize Hammett and Spillane for sure; but havent heard of any of the oters, and havent read a single page by any of them.

I stink. When Literature or Shakespeare comes up on Jeopardy; I just watch and go, 'Ah, another classic I heard of 281 times and have NO idea about.'

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[jeffdwright2001]

I recommend that you take a look at something by Rex Stout.

He wrote the Nero Wolfe mysteries and they feature an overweight Detective who is eccentric that grows orchids, doesn't leave the house on business, and once burned a new edition of Webster's Dictionary because it stated that "infer" and "imply" could be used interchangeably.

His assistant Archie Goodwin is more the hard boilded wise-cracking man-of-action (and clearly hyphenated) detective. He's the one who mixes it up with the suspects.

The series starts in the 40's and while the characters do not age, the stories time and setting do. They even mix it up with J. Edgar Hoover's FBI in "The Doorbell Rang".

Stout's last Wolfe book was written in the 70's.

They are all Novellas or short stories, so they are quick reading and if they aren't your cup of tea, not much time has been lost.

I recommend that you start with something like "Too Many Cooks" or "Some Buried Caesar". The first book in the series is "Fer-de-Lance".

Enjoy!

[BoondockSaint]

I like Robert B. Paker's Spenser novels. If you remember that show Spenser: For Hie these are the books it was based on. I always thought they were similar to Elmore Leonard books.

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[PanterA]

R.A. Salvatore

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[Yerdaddy]

Thanks for the advice boys. The night I posted this I just went with the old faithfuls and ordered Dashiell Hammett's "Maltese Falcon" and Raymond Chandler's "Farewell My Lovely." I wanted one that had been done as a movie, and one that hadn't, (actually it has, but I haven't seen it). Falcon came first and I'm a couple chapters in. So far it's the movie almost verbatim. I've seen the movie a dozen times, so it kind of takes away from it I think. Farewell came yesterday and I started it today. So far it's gritty and cool, and it reads like a Bogart noir film from the 40s. I'm digging it. It doesn't read as smooth as Elmore Leonard, but I've never heard anyone say that any other authors do.

Kasper Gutman: I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, its possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon.

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