This post was republished into my blog’s original timeline from my lost posts archive. The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson Scene: A diner in Central City, Texas; it’s the early 1950s. A man walks up to the counter to pay his bill… The proprietor shoved back my money and laid a couple of cigars on Read More
Tag: Noir
The case of the nasty young man
This post was republished into my blog’s original timeline from my lost posts archive. Dirty Snow by Georges Simenon Translated by Marc Romano and Louise Varèse For most of us, Simenon is famous, justly, for his creation of Maigret, the pipe-smoking French detective that appeared in over a hundred novels and short stories from the 1930s Read More
An author I’ll always look out for …
Daniel Woodrell …is barely known in this country, but has started to increase his profile a little with the release of a highly acclaimed film (it won at Sundance) made of his 2006 novel Winter’s Bone. He’s actually written eight novels, all of them set in the area he knows best – the Missouri Ozarks – Read More
File under Noir, not Fantasy
The Dresden Files Books 1 and 2 by Jim Butcher A few weeks ago while talking about crime series to read, my good blog-friend LizF recommended these books to me. As is often the case with me and my TBR mountains, I’d spotted them myself some time ago and had already picked up the first Read More
A Science Fiction Noir Classic from 1942
Donovan’s Brain by Curt Siodmak When I was writing my post the other week about my reading history I tried to remember my favourite Science Fiction books from my teens. John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids was one, Asimov’s Fantastic Voyage was another, but my absolute favourite from back then was Donovan’s Brain by Curt Siodmak. This Read More
136 pages of Classic Noir
Double Indemnity by James M Cain I love the classic crime noir novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, but somehow never got round to read any by James M Cain. I wanted a short novel to fill in a couple of hours and with these 136 pages published in 1943, I found a perfect Read More
Down and ‘borassic’ in 1930s London
At the Chime of a City Clock by D J Taylor Taylor’s novel is a cleverly portrayed slice of 30s noir. It’s set in the seedy backstreets of London in 1931. James Ross is an aspiring writer, but there’s no chance of making a living at it. He lives in London’s seedy Bayswater and his Read More
