It depends on your taste, I suppose. Very strong, agressive style. Very 40s and 50s feel to his books. Lots of short sentences. Lots of interesting details. Easy to read and easy to follow, but very intelligent. I think you’ll probably like them a great deal.
Not that you’re trying to imply that I must not be intelligent since I don’t get his stuff, right? 
All kidding aside, I agree with SA - Ellroy’s stuff is a matter of taste - I found books like White Jazz and Brown’s Requiem unnecessarily obtuse, whereas L.A. Confidential really worked.
If you want really noir noir, try some Cornell Woolrich (aka William Irish).
Some of Woollrich’s best include* The Bride Wore Black*, Phantom Lady, I Married a Dead Man, and The Black Curtain.
just wanted to second “Gun, With Occasional Music” by Jonathan Lethem. Strange, but well done.
a-HA! Maybe I do know what I’m talking about here!! 
Strange, yes - in a sort of “Raymond Chandler meets Brave New World and 1984” sort of way. What is wonderful is how well the styles mesh so perfectly - you get the hardboiled noir of detective fiction and the searching-for-hope-in-the-face-of-hopeless-totalinarianism of the dystopian future stuff. Really well done, especially considering that it was his first novel…
Yes, I do know you were kidding, but just for the record, let me stress that no slight whatever was intended. I read your post to mean you just didn’t care for his style…that his style was hard to get into.
I’ll add The Ice Harvest by Scott Phillips. The lead character is a lawyer rather than a cop or P.I. , but don’t let that put you off. There is a lot of criminal tension and clever twists, along with some great dark humor.
As was said before, Chandler and Hammett are compulsory. You might also want to look into W.R. Burnett, Fredrick Nebel and for a bit of the corny you could try Carol John Daly.
I also like the Nero Wolfe series, which I see as an attempt to blend the American Hard-boiled tradition with the English Cozy.
That’s an interesting point. I imagine Archie as the sarcastic Humphrey Bogart rather than the humorous type on the USA TV series.
Compare Wolfe with an Agatha Christie protagonist in 2,000 words or less. There will be a test on Tuesday.
Robert Parker
I will add my name to the chorus of those recommending James Ellroy. The whole of the L.A. Quartet, of which L. A. Confidential was the third book, is worth reading, but perhaps his best book is the “real-life” noir of My Dark Places, about his own search for his mother’s murderer. It’s jarring to read how the prototypical 50’s world he typically writes about collides with his own 90’s lifestyle. Cool guy IRL, too.
I’d also recommend J. G. Ballard’s Cocaine Nights for a postmodern noir.
I agree. My Dark Places is very, very good. I can’t believe I forgot to mention it.
Throw in all the early George V higgins books and be transported away by pages of pungent dialogue - cops and robbers and lawyers. Gorgeous stuff.
That’s the novel that takes place in Pizen (sp?), right? The town whose name, the book explains, sounds a lot like Poison?
If so, I think it’s the only Hammett I ever read. It was enjoyable, don’t get me wrong, but it was not as much to my taste as the Phillip Marlowe novels. Its joy was more in the bloody politicking (by which I mean, manipulating everyone into killing everyone else ), and less in the language itself. And I’m a sucker for a well-dressed phrase.
Daniel
No! Carmen did it (killed Regan). Dex must be confused. The passage: [Mrs Regan] " ‘He’s in the sump,’ she said. ‘A horrible decayed thing. I did it. I did just what you said. [sounding good for Dex’s theory, but read on] I went to Eddie Mars. She came home and told me about it, just like a child. She’s not normal. I knew the police would get it all out of her. In a little while she would even brag about it.’ […] ‘So you you let her run around loose,’ I said, ‘getting into other jams.’ " Carmen killed Regan, her sister covered it up and was blackmailed for it. Marlowe proves his theory by taking Carmen - who he has turned down rootwise, just as Regan did - to the site of Regan’s murder and Carmen tries to kill him with the gun loaded with blanks.That said, there are great differences between the film and the book. I recently reread the book as slowly as possible - a chapter a day. It is remarkable: The General doesn’t actually ask Marlowe to find Regan until p 206 (of 220). First you read it for the thrill, then for the descriptions, then for the political atmosphere, then for the structure.
The 1978 version is awful. What were they thinking? However, both Oliver Reed (Mars) and Joan Collins (!) (Agnes) are great. It’s worth it for that, plus the sneaking feeling that someone’s about to say “I’m not a number, I’m a free man.”
For a long time I though Chandler superior to Hammett. Then I read everything by Hammett. His best is certainly Chandler’s equal. Try The Glass Key and some of the non Continental Op stories.
Personville.
Memory fails me, but it goes something like this:
“(what’s his name) wore a shoit, so when he said poisonville (I thought he was saying personville) but he was right”.
A local used book store has a few Mike Hammer books, but they’re all late in the series and I want to start with I, Jury. However they do have The Erection Set which seems to be a stand alone book. Has anyone here read it? Is it any good?
Check…check…check…yup, good noir, right here 