I'll add my voice to those recommending Ross Macdonald's Lew
Archer. Macdonald, often described as the "Holy Ghost" of
private eye writers to Hammett's
"Father" and Chandler's "Son," was, frankly, not as good as
either of them at their best, but he was much more productive
and much more consistent. Maybe he never quite produced as
superlative a masterpiece as THE MALTESE FALCON or THE LONG
GOODBYE, but he also never wrote a THIN MAN or a PLAYBACK
(neither of which is bad, but neither if which is at all up
to the Masters' best). There were, I think, 16 Archer novels
and one short story collection, and not a dud in the
bunch.
That short story collection, titled THE NAME IS ARCHER in
paperback, and reprinted in hardcover with new stories added
as LEW ARCHER - PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, is one of the best PI
short story collections ever.
A few other '50's era private eye characters you might want
to check out: Thomas B. Dewey's Mac, Howard Browne's Paul
Pine, Bart Spicer's terribly underrated Carney Wilde, William
Campbell Gault's Brock Callahan
(a former NFL linebacker if anyone's still keeping track or
sports noir) in hardback and Joe Puma in paperback, Ed Lacy's
Toussaint Moore (the first credible black hard-boiled PI,
introduced in the Edgar-winning ROOM TO SWING), and Stephen
Marlowe's globe-trotting gumshoe Chet Drum.
PI's from later decades that haven't been mentioned yet, Joe
Gores's Dan Kearney and his Associates, Max Allan Collins's
Nate Heller, William (Dennis Lynds) Arden's Kane Jackson (my
favorite Lynds PI outside of Dan Fortune), Loren D.
Estleman's Amos Walker, and Jonathan Valin's Harry
Stoner.
And that's just PI's. If you're interested, I can do whole
separate posts on cops, secret agents, and criminal
protagonists.
JIM DOHERTY
____________________________________________________________________________________
TV dinner still cooling? Check out "Tonight's Picks" on
Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 19 Feb 2007 EST