Crime Fiction

Since last summer my favourite crime writer has been Carl Hiaasen and I think he is going to stay that way. Last finished was Native Tongue, now on Star Island. His main theme is Florida's badly damaged environment, his pan on the corrupted politicians, greedy developers and lowlife scumbags is razor sharp and ruthlessly funny. His offbeat good guys are totally attractive and engaging. The plot is always tight and flawless and even when implausible it's totally logical. I can't remember I've read any crime fictions so funny. What I like the most is that his bad guys always end up hilariously bad. The guy writes with a big heart.
 
Chester Himes's Harlem novels are outrageously good fun, condensed chaos in a hell-hole of gangsters, hustlers, drug runners, bent coppers, and assorted freaks. His best novel is the classic A Rage in Harlem, a red hot mayhem yarn that never lets up till the final page, though you can more or less pick whichever one you like; there isn't a dull one in the bunch.

Crazy, violent and very funny. I can imagine Tarantino grew up on these.
 
Chester Himes's Harlem novels are outrageously good fun, condensed chaos in a hell-hole of gangsters, hustlers, drug runners, bent coppers, and assorted freaks. His best novel is the classic A Rage in Harlem, a red hot mayhem yarn that never lets up till the final page, though you can more or less pick whichever one you like; there isn't a dull one in the bunch.

Crazy, violent and very funny. I can imagine Tarantino grew up on these.

Thanks for the reminder. I read A Rage in Harlem when the movie came out (and the movie is not bad at all), and have meant for years to get back to Himes.


Randy M.
 
For all the Chandler fans, I finally posted my review of The Lady in the Lake. Not the best Chandler novel, but still ranks as one of the better crime novels ever written.
Thanks for the review. Its years since I read my Chandler - I must re-read a few. By the way - nice blog - I'd not seen it before. Is there a search function for book reviews (sorry if its obvious).
 
Thanks for the review. Its years since I read my Chandler - I must re-read a few. By the way - nice blog - I'd not seen it before. Is there a search function for book reviews (sorry if its obvious).

Here you go (a few non-review things will pop in there). Glad you like the blog, and I definitely recommend re-reading Chandler! I try to re-read one of his novels every year, though I don't always manage to do so. Next year I'll do The Little Sister, which I last read in 2002.
 
Because of this thread I picked up Michael Connelly's Black Echo, when I got to the part where Bosch mentions his pager I couldn't help but laugh. Going to read Black Box, a 2012 release Bosch novel to see what the tech difference are like. Should be fun.

Also, anyone know of any good mystery / thriller forums? Besides AW?
 
My favorite detective novelists are Jim Butcher and Isaac Asimov. ;)
 
Because of this thread I picked up Michael Connelly's Black Echo, when I got to the part where Bosch mentions his pager I couldn't help but laugh. Going to read Black Box, a 2012 release Bosch novel to see what the tech difference are like. Should be fun.

Also, anyone know of any good mystery / thriller forums? Besides AW?

I've not found any good ones. As to the pager, I enjoy the older ones where there is almost all electronics. Putting a nickle in the pay phone at the corner drug store. There was more of a challenge. No using the smart phone to access the internet to track a subject. Look stuff up in the phone book and use a lot of leg work.
 
Because of this thread I picked up Michael Connelly's Black Echo, when I got to the part where Bosch mentions his pager I couldn't help but laugh. Going to read Black Box, a 2012 release Bosch novel to see what the tech difference are like. Should be fun.

Also, anyone know of any good mystery / thriller forums? Besides AW?

Is Black Echo the one where they find the body in the tunnel? If so, I read it and thought it was okay. My dad is a big Michael Connelly fan, but I'm sort of iffy on him.
 
The first 5,6 Bosch books was really good police procedurals with good understanding of law,order world thanks to Connelly crime reporter times, his connections but after that Bosch became a clichè older cop detective that you find in better written crime series. The details, the work that i enjoyed reading about in the early books went away. There are many better crime authors out there i rather read.
 

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