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Daredevil · 03-29-2011, 07:43 AM

Hi all. I'm a recent joiner, and still finding my way round the site. I was advised to post here, to start a debate and maybe try to compile our own 'chart': what are your best crime books ever??

Am also advised it's a BIG genre, so how about classic detective fiction, if that's still not too big...

My opening bid has to be Raymond Chandler. He got me hooked on crime from my teens onward, and I only wish he'd written more before his untimely death in 1959 (my birth year!). His prose is totally accessible but a pure delight - economical, funny, cool - and his characters are the sort you 'see' within just a page or two of reading. I feel like I could share a bottle or three with Marlowe if he turned up - a feeling no doubt helped by Bogart defining him in the terrific movies. And the archetype of the hard-drinking, troubled (?), womanising hard man with an intellectual streak surely begot a whole generation of detectives. (Although, arguably, Dashiel Hammett got there first?) I wonder if the hard-boiled cool Marlowe is only believable at a distance of 70-odd years, tho, - it wouldn't be possible, would it?, to construct a character like that now in our ironic times, except as a parody...

Looking forward to your classic detective writer votes!

03-29-2011, 07:43 AM	#1
Daredevil thrillerqueen Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: London Device: none	daredevil Hi all. I'm a recent joiner, and still finding my way round the site. I was advised to post here, to start a debate and maybe try to compile our own 'chart': what are your best crime books ever?? Am also advised it's a BIG genre, so how about classic detective fiction, if that's still not too big... My opening bid has to be Raymond Chandler. He got me hooked on crime from my teens onward, and I only wish he'd written more before his untimely death in 1959 (my birth year!). His prose is totally accessible but a pure delight - economical, funny, cool - and his characters are the sort you 'see' within just a page or two of reading. I feel like I could share a bottle or three with Marlowe if he turned up - a feeling no doubt helped by Bogart defining him in the terrific movies. And the archetype of the hard-drinking, troubled (?), womanising hard man with an intellectual streak surely begot a whole generation of detectives. (Although, arguably, Dashiel Hammett got there first?) I wonder if the hard-boiled cool Marlowe is only believable at a distance of 70-odd years, tho, - it wouldn't be possible, would it?, to construct a character like that now in our ironic times, except as a parody... Looking forward to your classic detective writer votes!