Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, & other great hardboiled detective novelists

Cafe Society
1

Having again called my weekly Tolkien thread on account of lameness, I have decided to instead start a thread on hardboiled detective stories. These are, of course, distinct from “classic” mystery stories like the adverntures Holmes & Dupin, and also from police procedurals such as Ed McBain’s work, or Law & Order, CSI, and their ilk. I’d like to begin the discussion on the literary side rather than the cinemaic, if you don’t mind (though I’m sure that the thread will inevitably move to Joss Whedon if it lasts long enough. :slight_smile: )

The greatest practictioner of this sub-genre is, in my unhumble opinion, Raymond Chandler, creator of Philip Marlowe. I remember the first time I ever saw anything Chandler had written. It was a collection of four Marlowe novels. I picked the book up because it was leather bond and beautiful; I bought it because of the ineffably brilliant opening, which you can read here. I’ll excerpt from Chandler’s description of a greenhouse:

I’ll stop now and we can see if anybody else wants to talk about gumshoes, gats, gunsels, & gams. Anyone? Bueller?

2

I don’t have time to find quotes - perhaps later. But writers like Jim Thompson (The Getaway, The Grifters, After Dark, My Sweet and the incredibly psycho Pop. 1280), David Goodis (Dark Passage), **Chester Himes ** (Cotton Comes to Harlem) and a few others are less-well-recognized pulp masters from back in the day that any fan of Hammett and Chandler would find wonderful.

When **Elmore Leonard **isn’t trying to prove that he is funny like Carl Hiaasen, his (Leonard’s) dialogue is among the best ever - I would hold up City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit; LaBrava, Swag and others as great, great examples…

3

Hammett’s my personal favourite. His real life experience as a Pinkerton gives his best work a realistic quality often lacking in other writers. A personal favourite is the Continental Op. Fat, cynical, tired, but goin’ out every day and doing his very stranger job.

4

Andrew Vachss’s Burke and Kinky Friedman’s Kinky Friedman are two of my favorites.

5

Here is a staff report I wrote about the origin of “hard-boiled” and the first hard-boiled stories: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1475/how-did-some-crime-fiction-come-to-be-described-as-hard-boiled

And here is what’s credited as the first hard-boiled crime story: World Public Library

And a short write-up about “Three Gun Terry”: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/three_gun.html

6

I’m a Chandler man myself.

He was so good that he’s been bad for the field. There are hundreds of imitation Chandlers and imitation Marlowes and the vast majority as only as good as you can expect an imitation to be. His similes were so powerful that the entire world decided they must be the real basis for popularity, but no one does them as well and they’ve fallen in parody.

I got into a phase once - must be 20 years ago now, startling to realize - in which I devoured all the new private eye books on the market. After about 50 I realized I was reading the same book over and over. Quit cold turkey. (Well, almost. I’ve picked up one or two since and they’ve done nothing.)

Maybe things have changed, since it’s almost a generation of writers later. I have to hope so, for everybody’s sake.

Chandler is still the best, the definer of the genre.

7

I actually think James Ellroy has redefined the genre, in a way by going back to the 50’s and 60’s and writing about stuff one couldn’t write then, for fear of law suits. Too bad it’s taking fucking forever to complete his American Underworld trilogy and finally release Blood’s a Rover (Previously Police Gazette). It’s been scheduled for realease “Next year” for a couple of yearsnow and the latest is that it will hit book stores next fall.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

When I see a firm release date I’ll re-read **American Tabloid **and The Cold Six Thousand. If Blood’s a Rover is as good as the previous two, I think this trilogy might just be the best crime fiction ever written.

8

Hammett’s my favorite, but Chandler is a very, very close second. I’ve read just about everything both have written, with the usual favorites (The Big Sleep and the Long Goodbye for Chandler; The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man for Hammett).

Among current writers, Ian Rankin is one of the best, albeit with a distinct Scottish flavor that I suppose some some might find inapplicable to the genre. His Inspector Rebus series, set in Rankin’s hometown of Edinburgh, is particularly good, including The Falls and Fleshmarket Close. He’s an actual police detective, as opposed to a private dick, but the feel and tone of the books is definitely hardboiled noir, IMO.

9

Being a big fan of the genre, I would order them as Chandler #1, followed by Hammett. When Hammett is good, he is great, but he can be uneven, particularly when he was drinking. (For that matter, Chandler could be awful, read Little Sister, if you don’t believe me).

A modern writer that, IMO, is better than either of them is Lawrence Block, with his Matthew Scudder series. Scudder is an alcoholic cop who accidentily shoots a little girl while trying to stop a robbery. He quits the force, leaves his wife and kids, and “does favors” for people who need a detective. Block is an absolute master craftman, and unlike RC and DH, he is wonderfully consistent. A Matt Scudder novel is a good read, guaranteed.