A Century of Noir: Thirty Two Classic Crime Stories

Book Info


enlarge picture	*A Century of Noir: Thirty Two Classic Crime Stories*
	Author:	Mickey Spillane (Editor)
	ISBN:	0451205960
	Format:	Handover
	Publish Date:	June, 2005




Book Review


*From Publishers Weekly* Shamus-winner Max Allan Collins and crime-novel king Mickey Spillane team up to co-edit A Century of Noir: Thirty-two Classic Crime Stories, a collection that includes tales by the aforementioned as well as by luminaries such as Chester Himes, James M. Cain, Donald E. Westlake, Sara Paretsky and Evan Hunter. It may not actually span a century, but this volume offers plenty of blood, booze and cigarette smoke in worlds populated by flinty men and fetching women. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. *Book Description* Thirty-two stories of stunning ingenuity. Thirty-two writers of legendary genius. One hundred years of crime fiction in a one-of-a-kind collection. Edited by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins. Introduction by Max Allan Collins. Featuring stories by: Lawrence Block Leigh Brackett Gil Brewer Fredric Brown James M. Cain Max Allan Collins Carroll John Daly Norbert Davis Loren D. Estleman William Campbell Gault David Goodis Edward Gorman Chester Himes Dorothy B. Hughes Evan Hunter John Jakes Stuart M. Kaminsky John Lutz John D. MacDonald Ross Macdonald Stephen Marlowe Lia Matera William P. McGivern Marcia Muller Sara Paretsky Talmage Powell Richard S. Prather Bill Pronzini Robert Randisi Benjamin M. Schutz Mickey Spillane Donald E. Westlake A Century of Noir: Thirty Two Classic Crime Stories FROM THE PUBLISHER Thirty-two stories of stunning ingenuity. Thirty-two writers of legendary genius. One hundred years of crime fiction in a one-of-a-kind collection. Edited by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins. Introduction by Max Allan Collins. Featuring stories by: Lawrence Block Leigh Brackett Gil Brewer Fredric Brown James M. Cain Max Allan Collins Carroll John Daly Norbert Davis Loren D. Estleman William Campbell Gault David Goodis Edward Gorman Chester Himes Dorothy B. Hughes Evan Hunter John Jakes Stuart M. Kaminsky John Lutz John D. MacDonald Ross Macdonald Stephen Marlowe Lia Matera William P. McGivern Marcia Muller Sara Paretsky Talmage Powell Richard S. Prather Bill Pronzini Robert Randisi Benjamin M. Schutz Mickey Spillane Donald E. Westlake FROM THE CRITICS Publishers Weekly Shamus-winner Max Allan Collins and crime-novel king Mickey Spillane team up to co-edit A Century of Noir: Thirty-two Classic Crime Stories, a collection that includes tales by the aforementioned as well as by luminaries such as Chester Himes, James M. Cain, Donald E. Westlake, Sara Paretsky and Evan Hunter. It may not actually span a century, but this volume offers plenty of blood, booze and cigarette smoke in worlds populated by flinty men and fetching women. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. Kirkus Reviews First bad news: This "century" of reprints goes back only to a smartly depressing 1933 vignette by Chester Himes. Second: It doesn't include Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Horace McCoy, Roy Huggins (absences regretted in Collins's brief Introduction), or Jim Thompson. What's left, apart from anthology standards by Fredric Brown ("Don't Look Behind You"), Ross Macdonald ("Guilt-Edged Blonde"), and Sara Paretsky ("Grace Notes"), is a middle range of hardboiled tales marked less by brilliance than by workaday professionalism. The crudeness of Spillane's idol Carroll John Daly shows just how far noir has come from its shoot-'em-up roots; Donald E. Westlake and Stuart M. Kaminsky provide mild humor; Dorothy B. Hughes contributes a memorably miraculous backwoods resurrection; Talmage Powell, Marcia Muller, and Lia Matera show how big a heart can beat under that trenchcoat. Mostly, though, hoods and cops, private eyes and freelance avengers simply try to stay alive while they're plying their everlastingly conflicting trades in the pages of Norbert Davis, Leigh Brackett, James M. Cain, William P. McGivern, Gil Brewer, Stephen Marlowe, John Lutz, Evan Hunter, Robert J. Randisi, Ed Gorman, John Jakes, Lawrence Block, Bill Pronzini, Benjamin M. Schutz, and both the editors. The highlights-John D. MacDonald's beautifully matter-of-fact insurance investigation, Loren D. Estleman's densely plotted twister, and David Goodis's pitch-black little nightmare-show the genre's characteristic alternation between bravado and despair. Readers looking for the true highlights of this all-American genre, though, will need to look elsewhere.