# Reccomend me a noir! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 27, 2004, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063 "2004-07-27T07:19:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/21 "2004-07-28T06:14:40Z")
> [@Estilicon](#): > > I loved the movie L.A. confidential. In fact I loved it so much that I planned to read the book. I founf out that it’s the third of a serie. Is James Ellroy any good? Will I be dissapointed with those books? 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. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/22 "2004-07-28T11:27:25Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > Easy to read and easy to follow, but very intelligent. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/23 "2004-07-28T12:26:42Z")
If you want really noir noir, try some Cornell Woolrich (aka William Irish). ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/24 "2004-07-28T12:30:31Z")
Some of Woollrich’s best include\* The Bride Wore Black\*, _Phantom Lady_, _I Married a Dead Man_, and _The Black Curtain_. ---
**Author:** ![MrFantsyPants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MrFantsyPants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrFantsyPants)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/25 "2004-07-28T12:57:25Z")
just wanted to second “Gun, With Occasional Music” by Jonathan Lethem. Strange, but well done. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/26 "2004-07-28T13:10:35Z")
> [@MrFantsyPants](#): > > 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… ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/27 "2004-07-28T17:39:53Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > 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** 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. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/28 "2004-07-28T18:03:11Z")
[Garret, PI](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0451150619/qid=1091037687/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-8157823-0362532?v=glance&s=books) Sam Spade never had to deal with magic, ogres, or vampires. But damn good noir. ---
**Author:** ![Murcielago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Murcielago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Murcielago)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/29 "2004-07-28T18:48:59Z")
I’ll add [_The Ice Harvest_](http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/0345440196.asp) 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. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2004, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/30 "2004-07-28T23:22:15Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/31 "2004-07-29T01:41:23Z")
> [@Johnny Angel](#): > > …Nero Wolfe series… 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. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/32 "2004-07-29T06:40:55Z")
Robert Parker ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/33 "2004-07-29T12:37:16Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/34 "2004-07-29T12:44:59Z")
I agree. _My Dark Places_ is very, very good. I can’t believe I forgot to mention it. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/35 "2004-07-29T12:54:45Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/36 "2004-07-29T13:58:19Z")
> [@rjk](#): > > (BTW, **Left Hand of Dorkness** , Hammett did tend toward the two-fisted type, but take a look at, say, _Red Harvest_ for one, where the Continental Op does take time out once in a while to consider what he’s doing and how he feels about it.) 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 ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/37 "2004-07-29T15:30:16Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#): > > Both MALTESE FALCON and BIG SLEEP (the one with Bogart and Bacall, not the awful remake) are great movies in their own right. However, movies are different from books. Changers were made in the plot. In the book version of THE BIG SLEEP, for instance, the murderer of Sean O’Reagan was the Lauren Bacall character. That obviously wouldn’t do for the movie, which is very confusing and inconsistent about that murder. **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. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2004, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/38 "2004-07-29T15:30:32Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > That’s the novel that takes place in Pizen (sp?), right? The town whose name, the book explains, sounds a lot like Poison? > > Daniel 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”. ---
**Author:** ![JoeSki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b487fb/32.png) [@JoeSki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoeSki)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/39 "2004-07-30T17:35:20Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2004, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063/40 "2004-07-30T20:41:28Z")
> [@JoeSki](#): > > cynical, alchoholic, hard boiled great sense of twisted or dark humor, and maybe some campyness in there to boot. Anything like that out there? Check…check…check…yup, good noir, right here 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reccomend-me-a-noir/257063.md?page=3)