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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Crime Fiction

19:26 / 24.07.03

I read a lot of crime fiction nowadays, probably because I hate how the modern literary novel has disappeared up its own arse. (But that's a whole new thread..) and I wanted to see what other 'lithers have read and recommend. To get the ball rolling I'll talk about some of my favourites. I'm going through a bit of a hardboiled phase at the moment, Dashiel Hammet especially, I rate him above Chandler, his plots are less convoluted and his dialogue seems sharper and more realistic. I've just discovered Jim Thompson, who's work is grimmer than well anything really, "The Getaway" is one of his best and is just gripping, he takes really unlikeable characters and makes you care about them, and the ending, fantastic. Also John D. Macdonald and his Travis Mcgee series, great main character, lots of philisophical asides and plenty of action. When it comes to more contemporary writers Joe R. Lansdale is hard to beat, the Hap and Leonard series goes from strength to strength, while his more serious work like "the bottoms" are superbly realised crime stories with plenty of period details and a decent coming of age story as well. Also Greg Rucka, whose work in comics is good, his novels are also well written crime books, like airport novels with actual merit, is possibly a reasonable decision. So there's my 2 cents feel free to shoot me down in flames, or maybe just recommend some books to feed my habit.

19:36 / 24.07.03

Therer's an old thread on detective fiction here which you might find interesting, though I'm never sure what the difference is (if any) between detective fiction and crime fiction... any ideas?

(I have just realised where your name comes from, btw - nice ref. there, old chap)

at the scarwash

20:04 / 24.07.03

I'd suggest that what Dashiel Hammet and Raymond Chandler write is detective fiction, and that Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me and Derek Raymond's The Crust on its Uppers count as crime fiction. Crime fiction focuses on the criminal, and detective fiction on the detective. This could be seen as a somewhat spurious distinction, but I think that as a whole, detective fiction is much more indelibly stamped with the stylistic conventions of the hard boiled school. Authors of crime fiction are more willing to deal with different personality-types and make more varied stylistic choices than the author of a detective novel. Not at all to say that the detective genre is a lesser form; I think that Chandler is one of the finest stylists in all of 20th century English-speaking literature.

Someone I've had strongly reccomended to me is Boris Akunin, who has just been published in English for the first time. The Winter Queen is still in hardback, so I have yet to be able to afford it. He's ludicrously popular amongst the Russians I know, though, so I will do so when I have the cash.

The Fifth Columnist

23:40 / 24.07.03

I find myself conflicted here -- I must agree with testpattern that Chandler is a much better stylist than Hammet. In fairness, Hammet is superior in plot and pacing, but in terms of style I'll take Hemingway over him any day. Chandler is perhaps more about the journey than the destination, but having lived in SoCal I give him props for his picture of LA society...even now his works are a pretty good depiction of what life is like there.

In terms of classic authors, let's not forget Rex Stout. I'm a big fan of the Nero Wolfe stories, for the comedy as much as the detection. If you don't like convoluted plots, then you may not enjoy Ross McDonald (real name Kenneth Millar) who was in many ways Chandler's successor in the '60's and '70's -- but I highly recomend him. He gets further into the psychology of his crimes, many of which turn out to have roots buried deep in the past...sins of the fathers, etc.

More recent crime writers in the Hammet vein are James Ellroy ( who wrote LA Confidential) and Elmore Leonard (who wrote Get Shorty). Both have at least half-a-dozen others that haven't been made into movies. I've also run across some books by Carl Hiassen and Tony Hillerman, who set their stories in Miami, Florida and on the Navajo reservation, respectively.

A current author you shoud check out, who writes "crime" as opposed to "detective" fiction, is Andrew Vachss who's guaranteed to get your attention. His "Burke" series is fantastic...he also did a Batman graphic novel that I don't recommend....the Punisher would have been a better fit. In real life he's a trial lawyer specializing in child abuse cases, and a former social services caseworker, who makes a point of mentioning that he draws most of the materials for his books from things he's seen and heard in his line of work. ... I saw him give a reading once and can safely say that his work is powered by anger and cigarettes, in that order. Jim Thompson seems to be a major influence on him.

Last month I read a detective novel by a guy named George Pelecanos, out of the D.C. area. Don't recall the title but it made me want to read his other work.

Hope all this helps.

11:38 / 25.07.03

I've just been through an intensive few months of reading crime and detective fiction, so I thought I'd leap in. I also recommend Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins books. "Devil in a Blue Dress" is a good place to start. The characterisations, settings and prose style are all excellent. In fact, I think I'm beginning to worship him as a god ...I'd say that about all his books ...

05:04 / 28.07.03

Pelecanos is tops. His books have the great dialogue like Elmore Leonard, but they seem a lot harder or harsher.

For my money it doesn't come much better than Lawrence Block, especially his Matt Scudder series. The easy description is that Scudder is an ex-alcoholic, ex-cop, unlicenced private eye, but the books are so much more than that. I would strongly recommend starting with the first one - The Sins of the Fathers - and going from there.

More info on Block's site.

14:53 / 28.07.03

I'd recommend David Goodis. A paperback contemporary of Jim Thompson, and about the only writer whose bleakness and nihilism equals Thompson's best work. Start off with Shoot The Piano Player (original title Down There and far superior to the Truffaut film), Dark Passage (equal to the Bogart film), and Black Friday (no relation to the Robert Shaw-Superbowl-Blimp movie).

His lesser works occasionally swerve off into self-parody, but it's all still worth a read if you're into smalltime crooks, alcoholism, desperation, overwhelming grief and suicidal despair.

I'd suggest buying a puppy aftewards.

19:07 / 29.07.03

I just found out today that Eliot Pattison brought out a new book (The Bone Mountain) some months back and will have to get my butt to Waterstone's to find it. His first two books were crime fiction with bells on (The Skull Mantra and Water Touching Stone) as former State Prosecutor of the People's Republic Shan, now in prison and disgrace, turns detective to investigate murders in present day Tibet.

Being a prisoner, a foreigner and an enemy of the state presents him with some challenges but his investigations illuminate the struggle of Old Tibet to survive under Chinese oppression and Shan has to understand the intricacies of Tibetan Buddhism and civilisation before he can make headway in solving the murders, which means the reader gets a spiritual education on the way.

For most of the first book, for instance, it looked as though a Tibetan thought-form had committed the murder. Must get the new one.

17:50 / 30.07.03

Just to mention "Miss Smila's Feeling for Snow" by Peter Hoe(g?)(k?) has both a massively layered plot and an undeniably intriguing protagonist.

12:34 / 31.07.03

Yeah David Goodis is great, highly recommended. Another current favorite is the Richard Stark 'Parker' series of heist and robbbery books. Try the ones from the 60s and 70s for that vintage flair found in like Jim Thompson, but even the comeback novels of recent years are highly readable. Also, I just read Richard Price's Clockers and thought, God, this is great crime fiction.

09:16 / 04.08.03

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Pelecanos, especially the D.C quartet. I've never really got into Elmore Leonard, though I did like Maximum Bob.
I'll try and pick up some Goodis, sounds pretty good.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:22 / 04.08.03

I've quite been enjoying Ed Gorman recently... it's unashamedly pulp, but it's damn good. "Cage of Night" was excellent, "Night Kills" was pretty good.

Lansdale... oh yessss...

And Xoc- I never finished "The Skull Mantra"- not cos I wasn't enjoying it, I think something shiny came along and distracted me. I may have to go back to that one.

01:16 / 06.10.03

Just finished reading Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Continental Op." Currently finishing Chandler's "The Little Sister".

Personally I must say that the Maltese Falcon is the better book out of the three. It's story is written tightly and you start understanding Sam Spade's inner workings after a chapter or two goes by. It's also quite a descriptive novel. In my head I never followed any of the character descriptions but I did follow the action. Everything seemed quite well detailed and thought out as if Hammett was a film director planning out all the book's scenes out as if they were to play out on the silver screen (as it eventually did but I've never seen the result.)

Now "The Continental Op" falls straight through the bar set up by the Maltese Falcon. The stories inside that collection are riddled with holes and some of the plots aren't made out to be believable.

"The Little Sister" is quite different from both Hammett books previously mentioned. First of all, it is not written by Hammett. Heh. Bad joke. Chandler gives Philip Marlowe an interesting personality. He jokes around and wisecracks quite a bit but he never gives off the "hard-boiled" feel. In fact, the Little Sister reads like a parody of hard-boiled detective novels. As I read it I get flashbacks of old Calvin and Hobbes comic strips where Calvin acted out some sort of detective fantasy. Can't remember what he called himself.

Uhm.. So basicaly I'm reading and generally enjoying what I'm reading.

Goodness Gracious Meme

11:32 / 06.10.03

Give me a D!

Give me a L!

Give me a S!

Dorothy L Sayers...

Tryphena Absent

12:03 / 06.10.03

[offtopic] I was greatly pleased to note on a blue plaque in Foyles stairwell, I believe the plaque resides beside the first floor entrance, that Dorothy Sayers had in fact visited that fine shop some decades ago. [/offtopic]

16:59 / 06.10.03

I love James Lee Burke's Dave Robichaux series, set in south Louisiana. He's one of the few authors (along w/ John le Carré) whose books I actually buy in harbback editions. He writes so well, I always forget how violent his stories are until I read another one. I also like Carol O'Conner w/ her unusual, amoral police detective, Mallory, who I find quite unsympathetic, but O'Connor writes like a dream. Her _Stone Angel_, though part of the Mallory series, is an excellent novel in its own right.

13:51 / 13.07.05

I thought I'd bump this thread as I have been reading a lot of crime recently.
The recent George Pelecanos novel moved further from the "classic" crime novel model and become much more a novel about social issues. That has always been a strong theme running through his books, but he left the "investigator" part of his work almost completely.
Due to a couple of decent 2nd-hand bookstores I've also been reading some classic crime: Ross McDonald, Rex Stout, Erle Stanley Gardner (writing as A A Fair) & John D. MacDonald. The supremacy of the plot is something that all these writers share. They vary in quality of characterisation and writing (and that's what marks the good books from the potboilers) but they are all excellently plotted.

14:09 / 13.07.05

A couple comments:

1. atthescarwash wrote: "Crime fiction focuses on the criminal, and detective fiction on the detective. This could be seen as a somewhat spurious distinction, but I think that as a whole, detective fiction is much more indelibly stamped with the stylistic conventions of the hard boiled school." --> (But James Ellroy focusses on the detectives in his crime fiction....) Maybe just to add to your distinction, I think crime fiction is more about the criminal potential of the character while detective fiction is about the detective potential. I say potential in both cases because I have read detective novels where the detective is a moron for half the book until he wakes up and smells the fingerprint dust.

2. Lionheart wrote "In fact, the Little Sister reads like a parody of hard-boiled detective novels." Have you read The Long Goodbye? Maybe parody in this case is not right the word, because Chandler was half-mocking and half-revering the genre. One reason why I like Chandler over Hammett is because Chandler can straddle the line between reverence and parody so perfectly.

3. Everybody needs to read Dennis Lehane's Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro series. Not only is it great crime fiction/detective fiction, but it's also an amazing character study. Unlike, say, Marlowe, the crimes and solutions have actual impact upon Patrick Kenzie physically and emotionally. Therefore, I urge everybody to read the books in order because the later books reference the events of previous books.

foolish fat finger

21:22 / 17.04.06

I ain't got much to say, but I feel I have to contribute to a thread that mentions Andrew Vachss. quite simply, the hardest-boiled writing anywhere... big fan.

from his website, I was recommended Robert Ferrigno. Vachss says 'you're gonna thank me forever for recommendin this guy'. well, he wasn't wrong. crackin writer. 'heartbreaker' is probably the absolute best, but they're all good.

in a similar wise-cracking vein, Doug Swanson is a great read, if u like the down-trodden, Chandler style PI.

finally, Robert Campbell's 'la-la land' series is superb. I think I might have got this offa the Vachss website as well. guy knows his crime fiction!

just to agree with the other fans of JR Lansdale's Hap and Leonard series- yep, definitely! him an Vachss are mates actually. oh, me an my Vachss! Vachss isn't for everyone, but if u like his style, you will love it, if u see what I mean. there just isn't anyone else like him. 'Strega' would be a good place to start- the later books can lack a bit of focus... cheers all!

oh actually, I will add another author- very hip ex-music writer from Manchester (yay!) Nicholas Blincoe. very hip, very urban, quite slapstick in places.

P. Horus Rhacoid

23:47 / 17.04.06

He was mentioned briefly upthread, but Phox, have you ever read any Tony Hillerman? His novels (with the exception of 'The Fly On The Wall,' which is partly a political thriller) take place primarily on the Navajo reservation in the American southwest, and he has a very good understanding of and deep respect for Navajo (and Hopi) culture, which really shows through in the books. A major theme of the books is the conflict between traditional Navajo lifestyles and beliefs, and the influence of white American culture. This is done especially well through one of the two protagonists, Jim Chee, a Navajo traditionalist studying to be a shaman (singer? can't remember the word off the top of my head) who is also an officer with the Navajo Tribal Police. The conflict between his ambitions of becoming a singer and contact with white American culture necessitated by his work and romantic encounters is developed slowly but convincingly over the course of a dozen or so books. The other protagonist, Joe Leaphorn, is also a tribal police officer but is much less of a traditionalist than Chee. Initially the novels keep them separate but after a few books they begin to team up, and their developing relationship is also handled well, moving from early conflict to mutual respect and friendship.

The plots are varied and unique as well, populated by genuinely interesting characters. I'm generally not a fan of having chapters told from the viewpoints of sinister hired assassins but when Hillerman does use them (three books that I remember) they're extremely well-drawn. The mysteries are generally extremely creative as well. And, as I mentioned, the books give a very good presentation of Navajo culture, and of the Southwest in general. You really get a feel for the landscape.

Hillerman's had cancer for awhile and his last few books haven't been fantastic (he's clearly getting tired) but anything written before 1999 or so is a great place to start. Starting at the beginning of the series will probably be more satisfying in that you'll get the full development of Chee and Leaphorn but really you can jump in anywhere.

Also, to Lionheart, three years later, Calvin's hardboiled alter ego is named Tracer Bullett.

18:23 / 19.04.06

As an aside, I'd just like to say it always tickles me when an old thread of mine gets bumped, probably due to some kind of perverse parental pride.
But now back to the crime fiction.
Waggling, good to hear from another Vachs fan. His stuff is incredibly hardcore to the point where I find it hard to relate to: Burke just seems so paranoid and the precautions he takes just seem so over the top that it's almost like something from another world. However I am a weed and a wet (hello sky, hello birds) from the home counties so have no idea what it takes to survive on the mean streets. I do reckon his books are quite hard to find in the UK, what do you think?
FWP: I'd forgotten about Tony Hillerman. He's one of these authors that I pick up in 2nd hand stores and enjoy, but not quite enough to make me pick up all the books in the right order. You're right about his obvious respect for the Navaho and I think that really shines through the books and helps make them what they are.
I've just picked up one of Boris Akunin's Erast Fandorin novels (the 2nd, I think) he was mentioned upthread and is definitely worth checking out).
I've also found a 2nd hand store with a complete run of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels and have been consuming them slowly. Aside from the books which are excellently plotted, with nice characters and flashes of excellent prose, one of the thing that really gets me is his obvious influence on the whole modern crime genre, especially on TV.

20:20 / 20.04.06

Phox: have you ever read any of William McIlvanney’s crime stuff? I’m not sure it’s actually what you’re looking for, given the other titles mentioned, but I rather liked it. Crime fiction’s never really appealed to me as a genre, and I only got into his crime novels through his other writing, but I was really impressed by the characterisation of his detective protagonist, and his interest in the social causes of crime. They’re certainly a much better example of gritty / realist Scottish crime than any of the rather tepid Ian Rankin stuff. It’s probably seen as a bit old-fashioned now, and I was a bit disconcerted the first time I read “There’s been a murder…” in Laidlaw, but from the quality of the writing it’s easy to see why it has been so influential. If you’re not averse to 2nd hand bookstores it shouldn’t be hard to get some if you’re interested; that’s certainly how I got most of my set.

00:58 / 22.04.06

Christopher Brookmyre - pant wettingly funny. A bit panto, but books I make time to read. His heroes are flawed and fallible, but with a great line in sarcasm and the tendancy to do the heroic thing even though they're terrified, very attractive. The love interests he devises are always great women who are saved and save in return. And his villains are generally upper middle class and right wing. Need you ask for more.

12:18 / 23.04.06

Though it isn't my usual read I actually read the first Laidlaw book through my book-club and really enjoyed it. You're right about his characterisation, and the quality of the writing.
RedTara: Christopher Brookmyre is good entertaining stuff, though his work isn't exactly all that subtle. What do you think of the connections to different characters that links all his books together?