If you are a regular reader or know me at all you’ll know the answer to this question is Dark, Gritty and Hardboiled. I’m a big fan of the hardboiled and Noir genres that have become famous in the 1940’s and you can see book reviews for these types of books under Pulp (if you are curious to know the difference between Hardboiled and Noir check out this post).
I’ve always been a fan of the dark and realistic, and while I do like that occasional cosy read, I often feel that the downplaying can often be overdone and in the end, I tend to not enjoy them. Those major bestselling crime novels tend to annoy me because they all feel formulaic and predictable. I want the laconic and dispassionate styles of a good pulp novel.
I know pulp novels don’t seem to be very popular anymore, there are some novelists that still write them like James Ellroy, James Sallis and Lawrence Block but I would love to know what others think of this genre and what they look for in a crime novel.
I recently asked the question on my blog: “if you had to live in the world of one crime novelist who would you choose from Chandler, Christie or Larsson?” and the majority seemed to respond with Christie, nobody willing to take their chances on the gritty streets of 1940s LA preferring to be cosy in 30s England instead.
I would definitely pick Chandler, I love that period of time
That’s what I would have picked. But it was a lot more dangerous I guess so people thought they had a better chance of staying alive as long as they weren’t rich in the world of Christie.
I just want to be hard-boiled 🙂
Theres nothing stopping you being hard boiled now michael. Just dont slap the dames whilst youre doing it.
I think my wife would kill me if I went hard boiled on her lol
I love cosy mysteries and whodunnits, although I’d like to try my hand at some noir.
There are great reads; dark, gritty and normally quick reads 🙂
I’ll read any of the above – I own the entire 87th Precinct (Ed McBain) collection and I love Robert B Parker, Dell Shannon and Lawrence Block, but I also enjoy cosies, best sellers and who dunnits. I like PI series from authors like Sue Grafton, Mike Ripley, Sara Paretsky and comedy/mystery series like those by Janet Evanovich and Robert G Barrett.
I’m yet to be impressed by any of the Scandinavian crime though
I have the same problem with Scandinavian writers but I have had my eye on Jussi Adler-Olsen and I’m hoping he will be the exception