A Brief Chronology and Bibliography of Hard-Boiled Fiction and Literary Noir in America and Britain
This section of our Reading Lists provides:
A Chronology (1920-2000) of Hard-Boiled Fiction and Literary Noir A Brief Guide to Finding the Stories Published in the Pulp Magazines A Bibliography of Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and Literary Noir – a personal selection of noir and hard-boiled fiction combined with links to useful online sources
In terms of published material, the most comprehensive annotated bibliography of primary sources is: John M. Reilly (ed), Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers (New York: St Martin's Press, 1980, rev. edn. 1985); another (much briefer and obviously more commercial but still useful) guide is Nick Rennison and Richard Shephard (eds), Waterstone's Guide to Crime Fiction (Brentford, Middx.: Waterstone's Booksellers Ltd., 1997) – a guide to a wide range of crime fiction currently in print. See also Geoffrey O'Brien, Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir, expanded edn. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997); and the section in Links on this site in which we suggest several online sources of information about crime novels.A Chronology (1920-2000) of Hard-Boiled Fiction and Literary Noir
1920-1945: Development of the noir thriller as a popular form
American hard-boiled crime fiction – most importantly, the stories and serialised novels published in Black Mask, Dime Detective and other pulp magazines of the 1920s-40s. Key writers of this period include Hammett, Chandler, W. R. Burnett, Paul Cain, James M. Cain, Edward Anderson, Raoul Whitfield, Horace McCoy, Cornell Woolrich
British thrillers of the interwar period – James Hadley Chase, Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, Patrick Hamilton, Gerald Kersh, James Curtis
1945-70: The paperback revolution and canonical film noirThe era of American paperback originals, which began in the late 40s – e.g., David Goodis, Ross Macdonald, John D. MacDonald, Mickey Spillane, Gil Brewer, Jim Thompson, Charles Willeford, Charles Williams, Richard Stark (Donald Westlake), Chester Himes (Himes was much more published/appreciated in France than the US, in France during this period Marcel Duhamel started publishing British and American crime stories in the Série Noire)
The era of the classic Hollywood films noirs (a label applied by French critics and not widely used in the US until the 1970s) also belongs to this period: significant directors include Fritz Lang, Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, Edgar G. Ulmer, Jules Dassin, Robert Aldrich, John Farrow, Joseph H. Lewis, Edward Dmytryk, Henry Hathaway, Orson Welles, Nicholas Ray, Jacques Tourneur, Samuel Fuller, Alfred Hitchcock. Narrowly defined, canonical film noir is taken to extend roughly from 1941(Maltese Falcon) to 1958 (Welles’ Touch of Evil), but Silver and Ward, in their Encyclopedic Reference to…Film Noir, start with Underworld in 1927 and extend their list to include Taxi Driver (1976), as well as adding an extensive ‘neo-noir’ section.
‘Brit grit’ and British gangster paperbacks: a huge number of cheaply produced, pseudononymous crime novels were put out by the numerous ‘mushroom’ publishers that sprang up (post-World War II) to feed the British mass paperback market; more serious crime writers included Gerald Kersh, Gerald Butler, Maurice Procter, John Lodwick, Julian Symons
1970-2000: Neo-noir and contemporary crime writing
American noir: many writers of the ‘golden age’ of paperback originals were still publishing during the 70s (John D. MacDonald, Patricia Highsmith, Margaret Millar, Charles Willeford); new writers emerging during this period include Edward Bunker, George V. Higgins, Craig Holden, Carl Hiaasen, James Hall, Elmore Leonard, Robert Ferrigno, George Pelecanos, James Ellroy, Bret Easton Ellis, Paul Theroux, Donald Goines, Susanna Moore, Vicki Hendricks, Marc Behm, and the ‘future noir’ of Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson
British noir: Ted Lewis, whose Jack’s Return Home (1970) was adapted as Get Carter, is an important 70s figure; in more recent years, there has been an abundance of British ‘New Wave’ crime writing: e.g., Colin Bateman, Ian McEwan, Ken Bruen, Jeremy Cameron, David Huggins, Charles Higson, Christopher Brookmyre, Victor Headley, Karline Smith, Helen Zahavi, Stella Duffy, Nicholas Blincoe, Iain Banks, Irvine Welsh
Neo-noir films are generally seen as beginning to be produced in the mid-70s: Scorsese’s Taxi Driver is a key film; so are Pakula’s Klute, Altman’s Thieves Like Us, Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon, Walter Hill’s The Driver. Other important neo-noir directors include John Dahl, Katherine Bigelow, Jonathan Demme, Abel Ferrera, John Flynn, Curtis Hanson, Michael Mann, Ridley Scott, Bob Rafelson, Lawrence Kasdan, Mike Hodges, Carl Franklin, David Lynch, Sam Peckinpah, the Coen brothers and the Wachowski brothers – and, of course, Tarantino.A Brief Guide to Finding the Stories Published in the Pulp Magazines
The pulp crime magazines: Black Mask was founded in 1920 by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, who sold it after half a year, and from then on it was given over to crime, adventure and Western stories. In the early 1920s, Dashiell Hammett and Carroll John Daly began writing for Black Mask, and the identity of the magazine became more sharply defined when the editorship was taken over in 1926 by Captain Joseph T. Shaw. Shaw greatly increased the circulation of Black Mask, and other pulp magazines were soon competing in some numbers.
Dozens pulp crime magazines sprang into being during the next decade, often very short-lived (and given to rapid changes titles and formats), sometimes surviving for no more than an issue or two. Amongst the titles that appeared are:Ace-High Detective
Action Detective
All Star Detective Stories
Black Aces
Clues
Crack Detective Stories
Detective Tales
Dime Detective
Double-Action Detective
Exciting Detective
Gold Seal Detective
Hollywood Detective
Nickel Detective
Popular Detective
Private Detective Stories
Red Star Detective
Speed Detective
Super-Detective
Sure-Fire Detective
Thrilling Detective
Top-Notch Detective
Variety Detective
Sampling early hard-boiled crime fiction: For pulp enthusiasts who want to collect some of the original magazines, there are, of course, book fairs and online booksellers from whom you can buy early pulp magazines (for example, The Curious Book Shop at http://www.curiousbooks.com/pulps/mystpulps.html), but this is (because of the cost) less likely to appeal to most students. For those studying the crime fiction of this period, there are some substantial library holdings (the British Library, UCLA, Harvard and the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, for example, all have collections), and there have been numerous selections of the pulp crime stories published that provide a good sampling. Many of the most popular series of stories were quickly published as novels (see individual information on Hammett, Raoul Whitfield, Paul Cain, Chandler, etc.); and the more famous writers of the period have subsequently had their stories collected in paperback reissues. There are also many collections that are more wide-ranging: the best recent collections, for example, are William F. Nolan, The Black Mask Boys (The Mysterious Press, 1985) and Bill Pronzini and Jack Adrian (eds), Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
Online guides: There are a growing number of online resources for those interested in the pulp magazines:
One of the most useful online bibliographies of the pulp magazines in which the earliest hard-boiled fiction was published is the Thrilling Detective web site, at http://www.thrillingdetective.com/index.html
The Adventure House Guide to the Pulps at
http://www.adventurehouse.com/shopping/default.html?target=p_13.html&lang=en-us
claims to provide ‘the most complete accounting of the pulp era ever compiled’, including publication history for more than 900 titles, data provided on title, publisher, and format changes, cover reproductions, etc.
The Black Mask Magazine site at http://www.blackmaskmagazine.com/blackmask.htl reprints many of the classic stories
There are, in addition, several good studies and histories of this era of pulp publishing. Amongst the most useful are:
Goulart, Ron, The Dime Detectives: A Comprehensive History of the Detective Fiction Pulps (The Mysterious Press, 1988) – one of the standard sources
Gruber, Frank, The Pulp Jungle (Sherbourne Press, 1967) - reminisces of Gruber's years as a pulp writer
Haining, Peter, The Classic Era of American Pulp Magazines (Chicago Review Press, 2001) – the highly personal, beautifully illustrated account of a collector
Inge, M. Thomas, Handbook of American Popular Literature (Greenwood Press, 1988) – a more wide-ranging and scholarly source book
Robinson, Frank and Lawrence G. Davidson, Pulp Culture (Collector's Press/St. Martin's Press, 1998) – a general (and very well-illustrated) survey of the pulp era, not confined to crime pulps
Robinson, Frank and Ann Bennett (eds), Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines (Collectors Press, Incorporated, 1998) – as the publisher’s blurb says, ‘Explore the rollicking, rip-roaring era of pulp fiction.’
Server, Lee, Danger Is My Business (Chronicle Books, 1993) – Server’s ‘Illustrated History of the Fabulous Pulp Magazines: 1896-1953’ is highly recommended, and still available in print - see www.amazon.co.uk/
A Bibliography of Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and Literary Noir
The novels listed have been limited to those in our own collection, but whenever possible each writer’s entry also contains a link (or links) to sites which offer full bibliographies of their work, plus biographical summaries and (in some cases) critical commentaries.
A note on sources of online information: In addition to the published bibliographies listed above (e.g., Reilly), there are some very useful online sources of information:
The Gold Medal site: http://goldmed.virtualave.net/author.htm
William Marling’s Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction: http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/marling/hardboiled/
Tangled Web - http://www.twbooks.co.uk/
The ‘Authors’ section of the Thrilling Detective site: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/authors.html
The ‘Author’s Calendar’ on Pegasos: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/calendar.htm
The Hardboiled Era: A Checklist, 1929-1958 – reproducing the appendix to Hardboiled America, by Geoffrey O'Brien (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1981), at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/biblio/checklist.html
Ambler, Eric, The Dark Frontier (1936), Cause for Alarm (1938), Journey into Fear (1940). Useful site: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/eamber.htm
Anderson, Edward, Thieves Like Us (c 1948). Useful site: http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/AA/fan38.html
Appel, Benjamin, Brain Guy (1934), Dock Walloper (1934-35, 1953), Hell's Kitchen (1934-9, 1952). For other Appel stories and novels see: http://goldmed.virtualave.net/appel.htm
Baker, John, Poet in the Gutter (1995); Minus Zero (1996); King Of The Streets (1998); Walking With Ghosts (1999); The Chinese Girl (2000); Shooting in the Dark (2001);The Meanest Flood (2003). John Baker's own website is at: http://www.johnbakeronline.co.uk; and useful information can also be found at: http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/jbaker.html
Banks, Iain, Complicity (1993). Bibliographic summery at http://www.sfsite.com/isfdb-bin/exact_author.cgi?Iain_M._Banks, & Banks ‘Index’ at http://www.geocities.com/~banksp/Rec/IainMBanks/Index.html
Bateman, Colin, Divorcing Jack (1995), Cycle of Violence (1995)
Beck, Robert [Iceberg Slim], Trick Baby: The Story of a White Negro (1967), Long White Con (1977). There are several good Iceberg Slim sites, tributes, biographical details and links to work currently available: e.g., http://www.popsubculture.com/pop/bio_project/iceberg_slim.html & the Payback Press site http://www.canongate.net/payback/pbp.taf?_p=2986 (Payback Press is one of the main publishers of black crime fiction)
Behm, Marc, The Eye of the Beholder (1980), Afraid to Death (1991). Behm site: http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/marcbehm.html#Afraid%20to%20Death
Blincoe, Nicholas, Acid Casuals (1995), Jello Salad (1997), Manchester Slingback (1999). Blincoe site: http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/nicholasblincoe.html
Bloch, Robert, The Dead Beat (1959), Psycho (1960). ‘Unofficial homepage’ (with bibliography) at http://mgpfeff.home.sprynet.com/bloch.html
Block, Lawrence, The Matt Scudder Mystries, including: The Sins of the Fathers (1976), Time to Murder and Create (1977), In the Midst of Death (1976), A Stab in the Dark (1981), Eight Million Ways to Die (1982), When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (1986), A Ticket to the Boneyard (1991), A Dance at the Slaughterhouse (1992), A Long Line of Dead Men (1994). For bibliographies of other Block novels, see: http://www.lawrenceblock.com/index_framesetfl.htm, see also http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/block.html
Bocca, Al [Bevis Winter], City Limit Blonde (n.d. [1950]), She Was No Lady (n.d. [1950]). As with most British paperback crime of the ‘mushroom publishing’ era, the standard source of information is Steve Holland’s Mushroom Jungle (see http://www.zardozbooks.co.uk/ for Holland’s book and for catalogues that often contain books from this period).
Boyle, Kay, Monday Night (1938). Site: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/boyle/boyle.htm
Brackett, Leigh, No Good from a Corpse (1944), The Tiger Among Us (1957), An Eye for an Eye (1957). Brackett wrote only a handful of crime novels, specialising instead in sci fi and fantasy. For a brief biography and a bibliography see http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/brackett.htm & http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/brackett.html
Brewer, Gil, 13 French Street (1951), So Rich, So Dead (1951), 77 Rue Paradis (1955), And the Girl Screamed (1956), Wild to Possess (1959), Nude on Thin Ice (1960). For other Gil Brewer novels (with covers reproduced) see http://goldmed.virtualave.net/brewer.htm
Brookmyre, Christopher, Quite Ugly One Morning (1996), Country of the Blind (1997), Not the End of the World (1999), Boiling a Frog (2000). For more on Brookmyre see http://www.brookmyre.co.uk/ & http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/christopherbrookmyre.html
Brown, Frederic, The Fabulous Clipjoint (1947), The Screaming Mimi (1949), The Lenient Beast (1957). Biographical summary and full bibliography at: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/brown.html
Brown, Wenzell, The Naked Hours (1956), The Wicked Streets (1957), Cry Kill (1959). Several other Gold Medal titles shown at: http://goldmed.virtualave.net/brown.htm
Bruen, Ken, Rilke on Black (996), Her Last Call to Louis MacNeice (1998), A White Arrest (1998), The McDead (2001). Useful site: http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/kenbruen.html
Bunker, Edward, No Beast So Fierce (1973), The Animal Factory (1977), Little Boy Blue (1981). Sites: http://www.crimetime.co.uk/features/edwardbunker.html & http://www.noexit.co.uk/bunker.htm
Burke, James Lee, The Neon Rain (1987), A Stained White Radiance (1992), Dixie City Jam (1994), Cadillac Jukebox (1996), Sunset Limited (1998), Purple Cane Road (2000). Useful site: http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/jlburke.html
Burnett, W. R., Little Caesar (1929), High Sierra (1940), Nobody Lives Forever (1943), The Asphalt Jungle (1949), Underdog (1957). Good Burnett site at Bowling Green State University - http://personal.bgsu.edu/~kharper/; & see http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/biblio/burnett.html
Butler, Gerald, The Lurking Man (1946), Blow Hot, Blow Cold [Choice of Two Women] (1951)
Cain, James M., Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), Serenade (1937), Love's Lovely Counterfeit (1942), Mildred Pierce (1943), Double Indemnity (1945), Sinful Woman (1947), The Butterfly (1949). There are several helpful Cain sites: e.g., http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jmcain.htm; http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/biblio/jmcain.html (gives full bibliography); & http://www.swisseduc.ch/english/readinglist/cainj/ (plus a few other online sources listed by the Open Directory - http://dmoz.org/Arts/Literature/Authors/C/Cain,_James_M./)
Cain, Paul [pseud. George Carrol Sims], Fast One (1932), Seven Slayers (1933-36, 1946). See William Marling essay at http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/marling/hardboiled/CainPaul.HTM
Cameron, Jeremy, Vinnie Got Blown Away (1995), It Was an Accident... (1996)
Chandler, Raymond, Trouble is My Business (1933-39, 1946), The Big Sleep (1939), Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Long Good-Bye (1953), The Lady in the Lake (1944), 1961, The Little Sister (1949), The High Window (1943), Finger Man (1950). There are, of course, many online sites devoted to Chandler , e.g., http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/3224/; http://www.levity.com/corduroy/chandler.htm; & http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rchandle.htm
Chase, James Hadley [René Raymond], No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1939), Eve (1945), More Deadly Than the Male (1946), The Wary Transgressor (1952). Useful sites: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jhchase.htm; http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/jameshadleychase.html; & http://www.crimetime.co.uk/profiles/jameshadleychase.html
Cheyney, Peter, Dames Don't Care (1937), Can Ladies Kill? (1938), You'd Be Surprised (1940). Full bibliography at: http://www.crimetime.co.uk/profiles/jameshadleychase.html
Coburn, Sammy [Bevis Winter], Uneasy Street (n.d. [1950]). As with most British paperback crime of the ‘mushroom publishing’ era, the standard source of information is Steve Holland’s Mushroom Jungle (see http://www.zardozbooks.co.uk/ for Holland’s book and for catalogues that often contain books from this period).
Curtis, James, They Drive by Night (London: Jonathan Cape, 1938)
Daly, Carroll John, The Snarl of the Beast (n.d. [1928]), The Adventures of Satan Hall (1932-4). Bibliographies at: http://www.hycyber.com/MYST/daly_carroll_john.html & http://www.blackmaskmagazine.com/carroldaly.html
Duffy, Stella, Calendar Girl (1984), Beneath the Blonde (1997), Fresh Flesh (1999). Useful site: http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/sduffy.html#Beneath%20The%20Blonde
Ellin, Stanley, Dreadful Summit (1948), Mirror Mirror on the Wall (1972), Kindly Dig Your Grave (1975). For full bibliography see http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/sellin.htm
Ellis, Bret Easton, American Psycho (1991). Several Ellis sites, of course – e.g., http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/8506/
Ellroy, James, Brown’s Requiem (1981), Clandestine (1982), Blood on the Moon (1983), Because the Night (1984), Suicide Hill (1986), The Black Dahlia (1987),The Big Nowhere (1988), L.A. Confidential (1990), White Jazz (1992), American Tabloid (1995), The Cold Six Thousand (2001). Useful sites: http://www.ellroy.com/ & http://www.modestyarbor.com/
Ellson, Hal, Duke (1949), Tomboy (1950). For other Ellson titles, see http://goldmed.virtualave.net/ellison.htm
Estelman, Loren D. - amongst his Amos Walker novels are Motor City Blue (1980), Angel Eyes (1981), The Midnight Man (1982), Downriver (1988), Silent Thunder (1989), Never Street (1997), The Hours of the Virgin (1999). For biographical summary and full bibliography see: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/estleman.html
Fearing, Kenneth, The Big Clock (1946). See http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/fearing/fearing.htm
Ferrigno, Robert, The Horse Latitudes (1990), Dead Silent (1996), Dead Man’s Dance (1995), Heartbreaker (1999), Flinch (2001)
Fischer, Bruno, The Lady Kills (1951), Fools Walk In (1951), The Fast Buck (1952). See also books included on Gold Medal site: http://goldmed.virtualave.net/fischer.htm
Fisher, Rudolph, The Conjure Man Dies (1932). Newsletter at http://www.fishernews.org/ & PAL chapter at http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/fisher.html
Frewin, Anthony, London Blues (1997). For additional works and information see http://www.crimetime.co.uk/interviews/anthonyfrewin.html
Glinto, Darcy [Harold Ernest Kelly], Lady - Don't Turn Over (1940), Protection Pay-Off (n.d.), Dainty Was a Jane (1948). As with most British paperback crime of the ‘mushroom publishing’ era, the standard source of information is Steve Holland’s Mushroom Jungle (see http://www.zardozbooks.co.uk/ for Holland’s book and for catalogues that often contain books from this period).
Goines, Donald, Whoreson: The Story of a Ghetto Pimp (1972), Street Players (1973). Useful sites: http://www.wwnorton.com/osb/goines.htm & http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/goines.htm
Goodis, David, Dark Passage (1946), Nightfall (1947), Cassidy's Girl (1951), The Moon in the Gutter (1953), The Burglar (1953), Black Friday (1954), Street of No Return (1954), The Blonde on the Street Corner (1954), Down There [Shoot the Piano Player] (1956), Night Squad (1961), Somebody's Done For (1967). Most Goodis novels have now been reissued, but for the vintage editions see: http://goldmed.virtualave.net/goodis.htm; see also http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/biblio/goodis.html
Gorman, Ed, Night Kills (1990), The Cage of Night (1996), Black River Falls (1997), Daughter of Darkness (1998). Site: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3192/edbib.html
Greene, Graham, A Gun for Sale (1936), Brighton Rock (1939), The Confidential Agent (1939), The Ministry of Fear (1943). Too many Greene web sites to list, but there is a good selection of Greene links at: http://www.brothersjudd.com/webpage/grahamgreene.htm
Gresham, William Lindsay, Nightmare Alley (1946). Some information at: http://www.lib.umd.edu/RARE/Exhibits/HardBoiled/Index.html
Hall, James, Buzz Cut (1996), Body Language (1999) Rough Draft (2001), Blackwater Sound (2002). Hall’s own web site at: http://www.jameswhall.com/
Hallas, Richard [Eric Knight], You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up (1938)
Hamilton, Patrick, Hanngover Square (1941). See http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hamilt.htm for brief biography and bibliography
Hammett, Dashiell, The Big Knockover and Other Stories (1923-29, 1966), The Continental Op (1923-30, 1974), Red Harvest (1929), The Dain Curse (1929), The Maltese Falcon (1930), The Glass Key (1931), The Thin Man (1932), Woman in the Dark (1933). Many sites relating to Hammett, of course – some of better ones being http://members.aol.com/MG4273/hammett.htm; http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dhammett.htm; & http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/authors/hammett/
Hansen, Joseph, Fadeout (1972), Death Claims (1973), The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of (1978), Skinflick (1980), Gravedigger (1982), Nightwork (1984), Backtrack (1987). Useful site: http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/josephhansen.html#Bibliography
Headley, Victor, Yardie (1992), Excess (1993). Useful site: http://www.futureformulas.free-online.co.uk/victor%20headley.htm
Hendricks, Vicki, Miami Purity (1996), Iguana Love (1999). Vicki Hendricks’ web site is at: http://www.vickihendricks.com/
Hiaasen, Carl, Tourist Season (1986), Doouble Whammy (1988) and Skin Tight (1989), Stormy Weather (1995), Lucky You (1997), Sick Puppy (1999), Basket Case (2002). For brief biography and a bibliography see: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/hiaasen.html
Higgins, George V., The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1972), The Digger’s Game (1973), Cogan’s Trade (1974), Trust (1989). For brief biography and bibliography see: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/higg.htm; William Marling on Higgins is at: http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/marling/hardboiled/Higgins.HTM
Highsmith, Patricia, Strangers on a Train (1950); the Ripley novels - The Talented Mr Ripley (1955), Ripley Under Ground (1970), Ripley's Game (1974), The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980); Deep Water (1957), A Game for Living (1958), This Sweet Sickness (1960), The Cry of the Owl (1962), Edith’s Diary (1977), The Black House (1981). Useful site: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/highsm.htm
Higson, Charles, Full Whack (1995), London: Abacus, 1996. Site: http://www.purefiction.com/pages/authors/higson.htm
Himes, Chester, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945); Harlem cycle novels are all in 1996 Payback Press edns: The Harlem Cycle, Vol 1 includes: A Rage in Harlem (1957), The Real Cool Killers (1959) and The Crazy Kill (1959); The Harlem Cycle, Vol 2 includes: The Big Gold Dream (1960), All Shot Up (1960) and The Heat's On (1966); The Harlem Cycle, Vol 3 includes: Cotton Comes to Harlem (1965), Blind Man with a Pistol (1969) and Plan B [1983]. Useful Himes sites at: http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/HIMES/CHESTER.html &
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/chimes.htm
Hitchens, Dolores, Stairway to an Empty Room (1951), Something About Midnight (1950), Gallows For The Groom (1947), The Blue Geranium (1941), The Ticking Heart (1940). Site:
http://www.bleekerbooks.com/Books/Authors/DoloresHitchens.asp
Hjortsberg, William, Falling Angel (1978)
Homes, Geoffrey [Daniel Mainwaring], Build My Gallows High, (1946)
Huggins, David, The Big Kiss (1996), Luxury Amnesia (London: Faber and Faber, 1999)
Hughes, Dorothy B., Ride the Pink Horse (1947), In a Lonely Place (1947), The Expendable Man (1963). Useful site: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dbhughes.htm
Izzi, Eugene, Bad Guys (1988), Eighth Victim (1988), King of The Hustlers (1989), Tony's Justice (1993), Tribal Secrets (1992), Players (1996). Some information at: http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/go/gizmo/izzi.html
Janson, Hank [Stephen Frances], Menace (n.d.), Hell's Angel (n.d.), Devil's Highway (1957), Hellcat (n.d.), Don't Cry Now (n.d.), Flight from Fear (1958), Mistress of Fear (1958), Kill This Man (1958), Lose This Gun (1958), Play It Quiet (1962). As with most British paperback crime of the ‘mushroom publishing’ era, the standard source of information is Steve Holland’s Mushroom Jungle (see http://www.zardozbooks.co.uk/ for Holland’s book and for catalogues that often contain books from this period). And see: http://www.hankjanson.org.uk/
Kavanagh, Dan [Julian Barnes], Duffy (1980), Fiddle City (1981), Putting the Boot In (1985), Going to the Dogs (1987). Julian Barnes site: http://www.julianbarnes.com/
Keene, Day, Notorious (1954), Dead Dolls Don't Talk (1959). Full bibliography at: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/keene.html
Kerr, Philip, Berlin Noir (1993) includes: March Violets (1989), The Pale Criminal (1990) and A German Requiem (1991). Bibliography at: http://www.myunicorn.com/bibl9/bibl0981.html
Kersh, Gerald, Night and the City (1938), The Dead Look On (1943), Prelude to a Certain Midnight (1947). Excellent and very full Kersh web site at: http://harlanellison.com/kersh/
Lansdale, Joe R., Savage Season (1990), The Two-Bear Mambo (1995). Site: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3192/
Leonard, Elmore, Mr Majestyk (1974), Swag (1976), City Primeval (1980), Gold Coast (1980), Split Images (1981), Stick (1983), Get Shorty (1990), Rum Punch (1992), Riding the Rap (1995), Be Cool (1999). These are just a few of the novels Leonard has produced over the last half century. For biography and bibliography see: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/leonard.html
Lewis, Ted, Jack's Return Home (1970), Plender (1971), Jack Carter's Law (1974). Useful site: http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/tedlewis.html
Linton, Duke [Stephen Frances?], Crazy to Kill (n.d. [1950]), Dames Die Too! (n.d. [1950]). As with most British paperback crime of the ‘mushroom publishing’ era, the standard source of information is Steve Holland’s Mushroom Jungle (see http://www.zardozbooks.co.uk/ for Holland’s book and for catalogues that often contain books from this period).
Lodwick, John, Something in the Heart (1948), Brother Death (1948)
MacDonald, John D., The Damned (1952), The Neon Jungle (1953), April Evil (1957), Death Trap (1958), Soft Touch [Man-Trap] (1958), The Crossroads (1959), The Executioners [Cape Fear] (1959), The Deep Blue Goodbye (1963), The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper (1968). MacDonald was hugely prolific, and this is just a small portion of his novels. For a good selection of his Gold Medal novels see: http://goldmed.virtualave.net/macdona.htm, see also http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/jdm.html for bigraphical details and full bibliography
Macdonald, Ross [Kenneth Millar], Blue City (1947). From 1949 on, his best-known novels were those in the Lew Archer series (Moving Target in 1949, The Drowning Pool in 1950, The Way Some People Die in 1951, The Doomsters in 1958, The Galton Case in 1959, and so on). For a full list of his work plus brief biography see: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/kenmillar.html
McCoy, Horace, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1935), I Should Have Stayed Home (1938), No Pockets in a Shroud (1937), Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1948). There are several useful Horace McCoy sites: e.g., http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hmccoy.htm; http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/hmccoy.html; & a William Marling piece on McCoy at http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/marling/hardboiled/McCoy.HTM
McEwan, Ian, The Innocent (1990). McEwan’s homepage is at: http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~imcewan/
McGivern, William B., The Crooked Frame (1952), The Big Heat (1953), Rogue Cop (1954), Odds against Tomorrow (1957), Savage Streets (1959). Useful sites: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mcgivern.htm & http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/biblio/mcgivern.html
Miller, Wade [Robert Wade and Bill Miller], The Killer (1951), Kitten with a Whip
Millar, Margaret, The Iron Gates (1945), Beast in View (1955), A Stranger in my Grave (1960), Beyond This Point Are Monsters (1971). Useful site: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mmillar.htm
Moore, Susanna, In the Cut (1995)
Mosley, Walter, Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), A Red Death (1991), White Butterfly (1992), Black Betty (1994). Useful sites: http://www.twbookmark.com/features/waltermosley/; http://www.bookbrowse.com/index.cfm?page=author&authorID=636; and other links listed at http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/mosley/mosley_walter_links.html
Nebel, Frederick, Six Deadly Dames ('30s stories coll. 1950), Sleepers East (1933), The Adventures of Cardigan (1933-5). Nebel’s contribution is summarized and a full list of his stories is given at: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/nebel.html
Nielsen, Helen, Detour to Death [Detour] (1953)
Nisbet, Jim, The Damned Don't Die [The Gourmet] (1981)
O'Connell, Jack, The Skin Palace (1996), Word Made Flesh (1998)
Packer, Vin [Marijane Meaker], The Damnation of Adam Blessing (1961). For a selection of other Packer novels see: http://goldmed.virtualave.net/packer.htm
Parker, Robert B. Parker has produced over two dozen Spenser novels between 1973 and 2002. For a full list of these and his other novels see: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/parker.html
Pelecanos, George P., A Firing Offense (1992), Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go (1995), The Big Blowdown (1996), King Suckerman (1997), The Sweet Forever (1998), Shame the Devil (2000), Right As Rain (2001). Useful sites: http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/au-pelecanos-george.asp & http://www.twbookmark.com/features/georgepelecanos/index.html (biographical details and bibliography)
Perry, Charles, Portrait of a Young Man Drowning (1962)
Pharr, Robert Deane, Giveadamn Brown (1978). Useful sites: http://www.wwnorton.com/osb/damnau.htm & http://www.canongate.net/people/pep.taf?_p=2087
Proctor, Maurice, Hurry the Darkness (1951)
Rabe, Peter, Kiss the Boss Goodbye (1956), Dig My Grave Deep (1956), The Out is Death (1957). For a good selection of Rabe’s Gold Medal titles see: http://goldmed.virtualave.net/rabe.htm
Raymond, Derek [Robin Cook], The Crust on its Uppers (1962), How the Dead Live (1986)
Reaves, Sam, A Long Cold Fall (1991), Fear Will Do It (1992), Bury It Deep (1992), Get What’s Coming (1995). Site: http://www.martell-reaves.com/srmain.html
Sallis, James, The Long-Legged Fly (1992), Moth (1993), Black Hornet (1994), Eye of the Cricket (1997), Bluebottle (1999), Ghost of a Flea (2000). Useful site: http://www.richnabi.btinternet.co.uk/Sallis/index.html
Sarto, Ben [Frank Dubrez Fawcett], Dread (n.d.), Miss Otis Comes to Picadilly (n.d. [1946]), Miss Otis Throws a Come-Back (n.d. [1949]), Miss Otis Blows Town (1953). As with most British paperback crime of the ‘mushroom publishing’ era, the standard source of information is Steve Holland’s Mushroom Jungle (see http://www.zardozbooks.co.uk/ for Holland’s book and for catalogues that often contain books from this period).
Simmons, Herbert, Corner Boy (1957). Useful site: http://www.wwnorton.com/osb/cornerau.htm
Smith, Karline, Moss Side Massive (1994)
Spillane, Mickey, I, the Jury (1947), My Gun is Quick (1950), Vengeance is Mine (1950), The Big Kill (1951), One Lonely Night (1951), Kiss Me, Deadly (1952). Full bibliography at: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/spillane.html. Other good Spillane sites are: http://www.interlog.com/~roco/hammer.html & http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/spillane.htm
Stark, Richard [Donald E. Westlake], The Hunter [Point Blank] (1962), The Man with the Getaway Face (1963), The Outfit (1963) and Deadly Edge (1971). For a full list of the work Westlake produced under his ‘Richard Stark’ and other pen names, see: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/westlake.html
Symons, Julian, The Players and the Game (1972). Symons (a poet, literary critic and reviewer as well as a prolific crime writer) contributed a great range of other crime fiction and criticism. For bibliographic details, see: http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/Julian-Symons.html
Theroux, Paul, The Family Arsenal (1976), Chicago Loop (1990). Theroux’s other work (much of it travel writing) is listed at: http://mostlyfiction.com/contemp/theroux.htm#biblio
Thompson, Jim, Nothing More than Murder (1949), The Killer Inside Me (1952), Savage Night (1953), The Criminal (1953), A Hell of a Woman (1954), A Swell-Looking Babe (1954), The Kill-Off (1957), The Getaway (1958), The Grifters (1963), Pop. 1280 (1964). Thompson sites include the very good Crime Time site: http://www.crimetime.co.uk/features/jimthompson.html; and, in addition, http://www.popsubculture.com/pop/bio_project/jim_thompson.html & http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/6437/jim.htm; there’s a full bibliography at: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/biblio/thompson.html
Timlin, Mark, Find My Way Home (1996)
Trail, Armitage [Maurice Coons], Scarface (1930)
Vachss, Andrew, A Bomb Built in Hell (1983), Flood (1985), Strega (1987), Blue Belle (1988), Hard Candy (1989), Down in the Zero (1994), False Allegations (1996), Choice of Evil (1999), Dead and Gone (2000), Pain Management (2001). Useful site: http://www.vachss.com/
Welsh, Irvine, Filth (1998). Site: http://www.irvinewelsh.com/
White, Lionel, The Killing (Clean Break - c1956). This is the best-known White novel, but a good selection of others can be found at: http://goldmed.virtualave.net/white.htm
Whitfield, Raoul, Green Ice (1930). William Marling essay at: http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/marling/hardboiled/Whitfield.HTM
Whittington, Harry, You'll Die Next! (1954), Web of Murder (1958), Hell Can Wait (1960). Full bibliography at: http://www.bleekerbooks.com/Books/Authors/HarryWhittington.asp
Willeford, Charles, High Priest of California (1953), Pick-Up (1954), Wild Wives (1956), The Woman Chaser (1960), The Burnt Orange Heresy (1971), Cockfighter (1972), Miami Blues (1984), New Hope for the Dead (1985), Kiss Your Ass Goodbye (1987), Sideswipe (1987), The Way We Die Now (1988), The Shark-Infested Custard (1993). Sites: http://oivas.com/cw/ & http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/cwilleford.html
Williams, Charles, A Touch of Death (1953), Hell Hath No Fury [The Hot Spot] (1953), The Big Bite (1957), Stain of Suspicion [Talk of the Town] (1958). Williams wrote some two dozen novels between 1951 and the early 70s: a good selection can be found at http://goldmed.virtualave.net/williams.htm; full bibliography at http://hjem.get2net.dk/bnielsen/williams.html
Williams, Gordon, Straw Dogs [The Siege of Trencher's Farm] (1969)
Willocks, Tim, Bad City Bues (1991), Green River Rising (1994), Bloodstained Kings (1995)
Woodrell, Daniel, The Ones You Do (1992), Give Us a Kiss (1996), Under the Bright Lights (1996). A useful site for Woodrell is: http://www.twbooks.co.uk/authors/dwoodrel.html
Woolrich, Cornell, The Bride Wore Black (1940), Phantom Lady (1942), The Black Path of Fear (1944), Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1945), Waltz into Darkness (1947), I Married a Dead Man (1948). There is a very good Cornell Woolrich site at: http://members.toast.net/woolrich/black.htm, a William Marling essay on Woolrich at http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/marling/hardboiled/Woolrich.HTM, and a full bibliography of his work at: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/biblio/woolrich.html
Zahavi, Helen, Dirty Weekend (1991), Donna and the Fatman (1998)
