Dark stories for dark nights
2008 October 29
I was out shopping a few days ago and found some favourites authors at a second hand book store:
Cornell Woolrich
Dashiell Hammet
Raymond Chandler
I just love these covers as well as the noir fiction, detective and suspense stories. They’re small pieces of stylized art.
Magnus Reuterdahl
I don’t know Woolrich at all but the Hammett is great stuff. The Chandler not at his best but always interesting to see him use a hero that’s not Marlowe, and what that lets him add or doesn’t.
If you’ve haven’t read Woolrich I urge you to get out there and get a copy of almost anything written between 1940-1948. Great reads are for example the Bride wore black, Rendezvous in Black and Marihuana, otherwise a good start is to pick up an anthology. He wrote several of his novels and short stories under the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley.
I do agree with you Chandler can get a bit tiresome at times, but he’s written a few gems along the line.
Thankyou for the recommendations. As for Chandler, I don’t think I’ve been clear, he’s one of my favourite authors, and The Long Goodbye and Farewell my Lovely in particular I think rank as genuinely brilliant pieces of literature. The trouble is that although he talked himself up as a genuine writer on the grounds of things like that, he did also turn out complete pulp sometimes, and Red Harvest is definitely in that line. More Frank Miller than Philip Marlowe, very high body-count (hence the title), not a great deal of bourbon-soaked introspection
Oh, I’m completely confused, aren’t I, Red Harvest is the Hammett. I wonder which Chandler I was thinking of? Anyway, in that case, well done: High Window is good and I haven’t managed to find a copy in the nice new uniform reprint edition of his Marlowe novels. Now I clearly need to get more caffeine down me before writing any more…
When Chandler is great he is great, and I rank him as one of my favourites, though it sometimes feels like he’s running on low octane fuel.
Before I begin reading these books I have a few that’s been queuing for some time, both were recommended and are first timers for me; crime novelist Charles Willeford and sci-fi writer Fredric Brown