The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group discussion

Okay, hardboiled fans, how about listing 1-2 of your favorite male hardboiled authors AND 1-2 of your favorite female ones? Give a hint why, too.
I'll kick it off. For males I'd pick Raymond Chandler for the overall richness of his work and the way he probes the human condition, and Robert Parker's Spenser series because at its best it also probes human frailties and I like the wisecracks. For females I guess I'd pick Sara Paretsky for her toughness and intelligence and Marcia Mueller's Sharon McCone series because of its darker texture, though I think the addition of lover Hy detracted somewhat.

M. wrote: "Okay, hardboiled fans, how about listing 1-2 of your favorite male hardboiled authors AND 1-2 of your favorite female ones? Give a hint why, too.
I'll kick it off. For males I'd pick Raymond C..."

I opened this thread to list Raymond Chandler but SOMEONE beat me to it. I'll add

Dashiell Hammett who slightly pre-dates Chandlers era and is good but not quite Chandler.

I am so glad you chose to open this thread as this is completely unexplored territory for me. I have never read any of these authors but I have really enjoyed the movies based on them. One of my favourites is Double Indemnity. I plan to read some one day and will enjoy getting recommendations. Any suggestions where to start? :)

Jane wrote: "I am so glad you chose to open this thread as this is completely unexplored territory for me. I have never read any of these authors but I have really enjoyed the movies based on them. One of my fa..."

There was a whole film noir movement in the late 40s and early 50s. Wonder how many of those were based on published work. Think 'The Killers' was a short story by someone. Think 'The Postman Always Rings Twice', Sunset Boulevard were all based on fiction as well as the classic 'Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.'
Here's a link to film noir. Probably you could find titles and look for the origin of the work.

http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html

You can't go wrong with Raymond Chandler. One of my favorite intro passages in fiction is his opening paragraph from Red Wind:

"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge."

Thank you Ken. I will start doing some research and from the first passage from the book I know I am going to enjoy them.

Red Wind is not one of the better stories so maybe start with one that has a collection of novels like Big Sleep, Lady in the Lake, or other Philip Marlowe stories. Can't resist another quote:

“The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

You can just imagine Bogart saying that. I will try to find an anthology to start with.

Is Ed McBain considered hardboiled? I have read a couple of his 87th precinct books and enjoyed them.

Can't help noticing you've all ignored the second half of the topic -- listing your favorite female hardboiled authors. One of the biggies of the 40s and 50s, and a well-known name in pulp fiction, was Dorothy B. Hughes. I hope to post a review of her novel THE BAMBOO BLONDE one of these days. Several of her novels were made into movies.

M. wrote: "Okay, hardboiled fans, how about listing 1-2 of your favorite male hardboiled authors AND 1-2 of your favorite female ones? Give a hint why, too.

I've read and liked a lot of the older authors that are thought of perhaps more traditionally as 'hard boiled' and Raymond Chandler does particularly come to mind.

However, my current favorite, while perhaps not what one would consider a classic 'hard boiled' author, is Craig Johnson, whose character is an older contemporary western county sheriff. Because I was raised and lived most of my life in the west, Walt Longmier seems very familiar to me. He is a very mature, quietly tough character, both mentally and physically, doing whatever has to be done to get the job accomplished without fanfare. The scene where he carries a wounded prisoner down off the mountain in a winter blizzard is an absolute classic ... been there, done that (well, not carrying anyone, of course, but feeding cattle in a blizzard).

Thomas Perry has done two pretty hard boiled characters, one female and one male. The first of a trilogy starts with The Butcher's Boywith a hired hit man as the main protagonist. The character has absolutely no socially redeeming qualities and the books are still fascinating. He also has a series with a female character, Jane Whitefield, starting with Vanishing Actthat is a bit on the hard-boiled side through the first few in the series.

Thanks for mentioning VANISHING ACT, Sharon. Amazing how few read hardboiled stories by female authors -- especially in this day and age.

M. wrote: "Amazing how few read hardboiled stories by female authors -- especially in this day and age."

You know, I can't actually think of any female authors that have written 'hard boiled' mysteries ... I don't know if you'd consider J.D. Robb's "In Death" series hard boiled ... many of the homicides are pretty graphic ... but there's a lot of romance and humor so I'm not sure if it would really be considered hard boiled.

What about Sara Paretsky? Marcia Mueller? They're both pretty gritty, especially Paretsky. And (as I understand it) humor was once considered one of the characteristics of hardboiled fiction.
BTW, have you read Dani Amore's ebook DEATH BY SARCASM? While I don't like the title, it certainly veers in a hardboiled direction.
There does seem to be an unfortunate tendency to have female characters dithering about a possible romantic/sexual liaison, though.

Richard Stark's (Donald Westlake) Parker series, especially the early ones.

Brian January

I will put Death by Sarcasm on my list, have not read that or anything by that author.

I've read some of both Paretsky and Mueller but for whatever reason they haven't ended up on my 'must read' lists. It does seem a bit odd that most of my favorite 'tough female' characters are by male authors. There is Eve Dallas but the others are by male writers ... Jane Whitefield (Thomas Perry), Holly Barker (Stuart Woods), Sunny Randall (Robert Parker).

I recently started reading Robert B. Parker's Spenser series and am really getting into them. I am reading in order. The first couple were pretty good, and he seems to be hitting his stride in the third book, "Mortal Stakes." I am really looking forward to book four. Seems most of the are available as e-books from my library, so I am psyched.

Spenser is great. Most of his are at the top. Even the few about 2/3rds through are good but not great.

Dave

I don't know if hardboiled is quite the right description, but Andrew Vachss' Burke series (starting with Flood) are definitely not for the faint of heart.

Dave

Hardest of the hard-boiled authors was Dashiell Hammett. His private eye protagonist was the titanium-hard Sam Spade. We had an entire discussion here on Goodreads on his masterpiece The Maltese Falcon. Deeply informative and worth a look. I have tried to maintain, as best I could, the same standards in my writing as Hammett did with Sam Spade.

Jim Thompson

Alex Delaware.

Although I've never read any of his books, I believe Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer is considered hard-boiled.

Deon Meyer and Sue Grafton

Try Massimo Carlotto, it's as hard-boiled as it gets.

The author of The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce is James M. Cain. If you like Hard Boiled he is great. To my mind, if you want more recent Hard Boiled try Andrew Vaachs. Then there's James Elroy (L.A. Confidential, Black Dahlia). These two authors will hard boil your eggs faster than a microwave oven. And nobody's mentioned Robert Crais and his Elvis Cole novels? Then there's Dennis Lehane (Gone, Baby Gone & Mystic River). Lot's to catch up on if you really like Hard Boiled ...

Are any Goodreads authors in the hard-boiled camp? (Me? I'm a soft-boiled writer. Return of the Falcon)

Hard Boiled was my intent in my first novel PAGAN MOON. BLACK KARMA,the second in the series is a bit less hard boiled as the main character exposes his vulnerability. But I tried to learn from the hard boiled 'masters' and hope I pulled it off.

Don wrote: "Are any Goodreads authors in the hard-boiled camp? (Me? I'm a soft-boiled writer. Return of the Falcon)"



Deadly Talleyis my first venture into the genre. I've long been an admirer of Dashiell Hammett and particularly Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe.
I didn't want to tred on their turf so I moved the action to trendy Newport Beach and brought the action into the 21st Century.

Ken...Deadly Talley is on my list. The venue got me. Even though I live in Chicago, I spent some years (long, long ago) in Huntington Beach, Santa Ana, San Pedro, and the City of Orange, right on Chapman, not too far from the circle.

But it was the El Camino that cinched it.

I used to live in Orange, not too far from the circle. Almond Street. I picked an El Camino because I had one myself moderately muscled up. The first draft of the cover had an El Camino in it but set against a background of graffiti in an alley. I rejected it because much of the action is in the 'graffiti free zone' of the Gold Coast.

I'm sure you will like it.

My brother owned an El Camino. I was always jealous.

I look forward to the read, but there are a few ahead of Deadly Talley. I'm a diligent reader, though.

Daniela wrote: "Try Massimo Carlotto, it's as hard-boiled as it gets."

Thanks for the tip. He looks interesting.

What about Val McDermid? Her The Wire In The Blood Series is pretty noir.

Loved the BBC production with Robson Green.

Jane wrote: "You can just imagine Bogart saying that. I will try to find an anthology to start with.

Is Ed McBain considered hardboiled? I have read a couple of his 87th precinct books and enjoyed them."

I enjoy Ed McBain's 87th Precinct books, as well. In fact, I'm just starting The Pusher: An 87th Precinct Novel.

I've been reading the series for years, and just found out that my local library has many of the early ones. Ones that were off most shelves long before I discovered the series. The Pusher: An 87th Precinct Novel is just one of those, being the 3rd book in the series.

HAs anyone mentioned the Travis McGee books yet?

OK, so they're set in an entirely different era, but John D MacDonald was great at evoking the spirit of the sullied knight on a ramshackle charger (in this case it's an old boat parked up in Florida). Trav is almost the archetypal anti-hero, and the stories veer from potboiler pulp fiction to some truly gritty noir.

The Deep Blue Goodbye/Nightmare in Pink is a good one to start with:
https://murdermayhemandmore.wordpress...

William wrote: "The author of The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce is James M. Cain. If you like Hard Boiled he is great. To my mind, if you want more recent Hard Boiled try Andrew ..."

I also consider these to be Noir~
How about Mickey Spillane?

Rowena wrote: "HAs anyone mentioned the Travis McGee books yet?

OK, so they're set in an entirely different era, but John D MacDonald was great at evoking the spirit of the sullied knight on a ..."

I was/am a fan of Travis McGee. Those John D. MacDonald books had a lot to do with me getting into the Thriller/Crime novel genre.

Recently discovered that my local library has a lot of them still in the system. Although, I do also see a lot of them no longer there. I've re-read a few and will be looking at more of them.

And, the "ramshackle boat" was actually a houseboat that McGee won in a poker game. In one of the early books he goes over that in more detail. Detail that I don't remember in detail, but, it is an explanation.

Good entertaining books and I'd agree with McGee being a "sullied knight" and an archetypal anti-hero. He doesn't always get the girl, but, many times, she is more interested than he is.

Here's some more hard boiled authors. Excellent, but not previously mentioned.

Vachss -- his early Burke characters in particular.
Dan Simmons -- his Kurtz character is very strong.