And why?
For a follow up question I’ll ask, what is your favorite contemporary (last 15 years) crime novel set in Los Angeles?
My current favourite (apologies for the spelling - I’m in the U.K.) crime novelist is Ian Rankin. His books are set in Scotland and the main character - D.I. Rebus - just doesn’t give a damn. Good references to some good music as well.
I’m a big fan of Tony Hillerman. His books are set in the Southwest U.S. and generally take place on Navajo reservations. He weaves Native American mores and rituals into his stories and paints a beautiful picture of the southwest/Painted desert area.
**James Ellroy. **Crime novels generally bore me, there’re more often than not a tiresome endeavour do fill pages with words, but this man gets the tension from page one on to the last one. (Talking about his now classical novels, LA Confidential, White Jazz, etc, of course.)
Agreed on James Ellroy being my favorite too, and his interconnected L.A. Quartet novels are my favorites of his work (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and the not-as-good-as-the-others White Jazz).
Patricia Highsmith. Her evocation of, and forcing the reader’s empathy with, a sociopath in the Ripley novels was way ahead of its time.
LA? I only know Ellroy.
Lawrence Block: no-one can match him for sheer breadth of talent. He ranges from the grim and gritty Scudder novels to the effortlessly whimsical genre parodies of the “Burglar” series to the nastily amusing Ehrengraf stories to Keller, most sympathetic of hitmen. I like a lot of other crime novelists, from the severity of James Lee Burke to the playfulness of Carl Hiaasen, but only Block has the range to span both extremes.
Two favorites, but maybe they don’t write crime novels so much as historical mysteries – Owen Parry writes a Civil War series featuring Abel Jones, and Boris Akunin, the Erast Fandorin books (which take forever to be translated to English).
Two others I like are John Connolly and Michael Connelly, and since their names are so similar, I can never remember which one wrote which book. But since they’re both good, no problem. 
I’ve read every one of Michael Connelly’s books, and I’m anxiously awaiting his next. I think his stories and his characters have a lot of heart. In fact, I was going to start a thread with the topic “I like Michael Connelly, what other authors might I like?” Any suggestions would be welcome. I’m sure I’ll get a lot of good ones from this thread.
Wow, that’s interesting! Thanks, beagledave.
John Sanford’s prey novels are an always pick up for me. Lucas seems more like an antihero to me. I used to like Patterson’s Alex Cross novels until he f’d it up with the whole “mastermind” thing. As for as LA sorry I can’t think opf anything contemporary, unless you mean written, then I’ll go with Mosely.
J.A Jance is my favorite.
Not a personal friend, though we have communicated over e mail.
Does Carl Hiaasen count? Can I sneak him in as a comic crime novelist, maybe? He cracks me right up.
I’m going to have to stay with Raymond Chandler.
Laurie R King is one of the best mystery writers still writing.
I also love Dick Francis, Tony Hillerman, Laura Lippman, and Martha Grimes (though I stopped reading Grimes a few years ago and have just recently started back up again).
That literature map put Laurie R King near Robert Parker. That’s really weird.
Lawrence Sanders.
Favorite, nobody has yet come along to trump Raymond Chandler, although there are lots of great authors. Why? A certain eloquence to his prose that was present but did not call attention to itself. He’s just the master.
LA novel in the last 15 years: Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker, whose body of work is impressive (and whose most recent novel is on my to-read list and may be even better).
I agree, that was an excellent book.
Tim Dorsey is the current favorite.
Serial murder, robbery, rampant drug abuse and kidnapping are still crimes, right?