For Ellroy, I go against the grain and recommend White Jazz,
LA Confidential, and American Tabloid. The early books are
just not as innovative, kinda dull.
George Pelecanos: King Suckerman and The Big Blowdown. The
Whole D.C. Quartet. The Nick Stefanos books are fine, but he
really stepped up a notch to write these others.
Hammett: Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon. It's hard to
shrug off 60 years of baggage and just read Mal.Fal. without
the movie playing in your head, but try.
Chandler: The Long Goodbye.
Crumley: The Last Good Kiss
On another note, I think it's a shame that Fredric Brown's
work, so often praised here, is hard to find now. I wish the
crime novels would be picked up and reprinted, since I'm not
a big "go out and scout for used books" guy. Any ideas of who
has the current rights, and who we might want to petition
about that?
Neil Smith
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