Hi Jim!
Unless someone's already mentioned it, perhaps the most
recent example of noir plus hardboiled is Thomas Cook's
(sadly neglected) series featuring Frank Clemons -- who was
nominated for the 111, and rightly so. No one can do
contemporary noir better than Cook; unfortunately, he's
strayed from the hardboiled path in his last several
novels.
... Reed
> In prose, the best examples I can think of,
since
> their books are otherwise very similar, are
Spillane's
> Mike Hammer series, and Prather's Shell Scott
series.
>
> Hammer exists in a very noir universe, where
the
> concrete canyons of Manhattan are always in
shadow,
> the streets are always ran-swept, and the dawn
never
> seems to come. Shell Scott, just as tough, just
as
> lethal, just as right-wing and anti-communist
(it's
> interesting to compare the Scott novel PATTERN
FOR
> PANIC with ONE LONELY NIGHT), lives in a
perpetually
> sunny atmosphere, where it's rarely night-time,
where
> even the worst crooks are good-humored, and
where
> booze is taken to boost his already ebullient
spirits
> rather than to drown his sorrows.
>
> Noir just means a dark and sinister atmosphere,
and
> it's as easy to fit a hard-boiled character into
such
> an atmosphere (arguably, it's easier) than any
other
> kind of character.
>
> JIM DOHERTY
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