Hardboiled American Crime and Worldwide Noir Fiction discussion

I'm going back to the monthly format for nominations. I can use old months' nominations for polls if I think there are good books in there we need reconsider.

Please use this topic for nominating books for our July group read in the hardboiled genre. We aren't a year old, as a group, so let's not repeat any authors yet.

I nominate Sleeping Dogs and Other Stories by Robert Leslie Bellem.

One of my wife's favorite expressions (or cliches) is, "Let sleeping dogs lie." So the title of this short story collection immediately attracts me.

I wanted to find something by Robert Leslie Bellem to nominate. Bellem tried his hand at a novel once, and normally that would be for choice, but it looks like the result of that effort was problematic at best and never repeated. Bellem was most at home in the short story, preferably one featuring his favorite detective Dan Turner. Dan says things like, "She's deader than a Nazi's conscience!" Further, according to Wikipedia, after finding a female body in his closet in "Corpse in the Closet", Dan Turner observes, "It's a damned screwy feeling to reach for pajamas and find a cadaver instead." Perelman comments on this, "Mr. Turner, you will perceive, is a man of sentiment." Notice that a Dan Turner story features in almost every one of these issues: http://www.philsp.com/homeville/cfi/t... In all, I count 411 Dan Turner stories written from 1934-1950. That's maybe too much information!

The story collection I am choosing to nominate came out two months ago and has been rated but once. That could change if it wins our poll.

I’m going to see how much Amazon is charging for this book. By-the-way, I’ve never heard of this author. 😎


Zain