Aussie Lovers of Crime/Mystery/Thriller/Suspense discussion

Time to talk about my favourite Crime sub genres; Hard-Boiled or Noir novels.

I'm a huge fan of these genres (as you can tell by one of my other bookclub) but I want to know what people others loved and recommend in this genre.

**Queue Toby's long list of recommendations**

Michael, for those of us who don't really know (read.. haven't a clue) can you put what these sub genres encompass? Thanks:)

I have, see links

Hard-boiled (fiction is a literary style, most commonly associated with crime fiction (especially detective stories), and distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sometimes sex,, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined by Raymond Chandler beginning in the late 1930s.

Noir is similar but the protagonist is usually not a detective, but instead either a victim, a suspect, or a perpetrator; popularized by James M Cain beginning in the late 1930s and then Jim Thompson from the 1950s.

I'm not gonna do it. I'll bore you all to tears with my recommendations.

What's interesting is the idea that classic hard-boiled and noir books are more violent than what people want from a mystery when they are positively tame when compared to what's getting published today.

It's worth remembering that whilst they were morally suspect for the 30s or 50s their behaviour is pretty normal in the 21st century. And infact due to publishing codes actually had to leave a lot more to the imagination than Lee Child or Stig Larrson do today.

But I started writing so I HAVE to drop some names on people now.

If you're gonna skip the big three of the classic period - Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain then I highly recommend starting with the early Lawrence Block collection One Night Stands and Lost Weekends as a brilliant introduction to what the genre is all about in short and not so sweet chunks.

From that point there's a miriad of ways to investigate what is now nearly 100 years of darker crime storytelling.

I actually have never read a Lawrence Block novel; I really should be I don't wanna start with a collection of short stories.

Michael wrote: "I actually have never read a Lawrence Block novel; I really should be I don't wanna start with a collection of short stories."

as you're already acquainted with the genre Michael how about the first Matt Scudder The Sins of the Fathers or even better the first book from Hard Case Crime, Grifter's Game?

I do need to get into the Hard Case series but it may be with The Cocktail Waitress

Michael wrote: "I do need to get into the Hard Case series but it may be with The Cocktail Waitress"

Because you're getting it for free?

Apparently it's on it's way *fingers crossed*

Hard-boiled-type first person yarns are my favorite mystery genre. But I'm not a purist devoted to Chandler, Hammett, Ross MacDonald etc. My tops? John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee. Followed by: Spenser; Doc Ford; Elvis Cole; VI Warshawski (a female, but so what?); Geoffrey Norman's Morgan Hunt. But I believe the best hard-boiled series going is out of Australia--Peter Corris's Cliff Hardy.

John D. MacDonald
Geoffrey Norman
Peter Corris

Some great choices there D.R:) I've read Comeback and really enjoyed it.

In modern parlance:

Noir is the world. Hard-Boiled is the character. You can have Noir without the Hard-Boiled, but not the other way around.

IMHO, the best Noir novelist atm is Roger Smith. Check out his Wake Up Dead: A Thriller, followed by Dust Devils, then Mixed Blood: A Thriller.

Sounds interesting. Good rec JM.