Here is an interview with noir author Josh K. Stevens. I have not read any of his books, but after this interview I look forward reading his books. Check out the full interview with his take on the history of noir, who has influenced him over the years and who he is reading today:
http://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/i-write-pulp-because-i-love-it-an-interview-with-josh-k.-stevens
Charlie Huston is an author I’ve really enjoyed reading in the past. The Hank Thompson trilogy is one of my favorite modern noir stories I have read. I also read the first Joe Pitt book, Already Dead about a hardboiled private investigator that happens to be a vampire. This is also very good, and I enjoyed the mixing of urban fantasy with classic noir. I found The Shotgun Rule on sale for my Nook and had to snag it up.
This book is a noir coming of age tale revolving around four friends. Two are brothers, the younger one is a genius and the older one is the leader of the gang. We also have a Latino with a Mohawk who loves punk rock music and a boy who has lost his mother and has a strained relationship with his father. When the youngest brother gets his bike stolen, the gang knows it is the family of criminals down the street. When a fight ensues and the bike thieves go to jail our gang explores the house to find a new meth lab. As our story progresses we find a lot of interesting characters, including a drug dealing aunt, a father with a mysterious criminal past, a friend that has never truly grown up and a fat drug dealer who likes to use a scooter rather than walk.
This is another very good book from Huston with some interesting dialog and a twisting violent story line. I enjoyed the mixing of coming of age tale with a gritty crime saga. If you have never read Huston before I would start with Caught Stealing, and if you are already a fan of Huston and have not read this book, I think it is worth your time.
Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer is coming back to the silver screen and Joel and Ethan Coen are involved. This sounds like a match made in noir heaven!
Criminal Love and Other Stories by Mike Monson is a hodge podge of a book. The first third is a collection of short noir tales. Some of these are as short as a few pages long. The stories pack a punch and some would make a great premise for longer stories or even novels. It is amazing how much story Monson can put in just a few pages. Most of the tales take place around Monson’s current home of Modesto, California, but one standout tale for me was “An Evening in Sin City.” This story is about a couple on vacation in Las Vegas. When the wife just wants to stay in the room and watch the same old reality television she would be watching at home, the husband decides to go downstairs and play some craps. When he wins big and catches the eye of a young attractive women who looks like Cher in her youth the story really takes off and doesn’t end the way you would think.
The middle third of the book is some short stories of Monson’s own experiences working at different locations. Some of these are humorous and some insightful and some are just disturbing how big corporations see their employees.
The last third of the book is a few interviews with crime authors. The four authors interviewed are Tyler Dilts, Jason Starr, Jake Hinkson and J.A.(Julie) Kazimer. I have not read any of these four, but look forward to checking out their work based on these interviews. It was interesting to see how different and how similar all of them are.
So the book is very entertaining in a variety of ways. Some may find only one or two section of the book to their liking, but the whole book is worth reading. All Due Respect does it again with another great entry in the noir genre! I haven’t read anything from these guys that I did not like yet. I look forward to reading more from this publisher in the future. Check out their website for all the books they have available.
Here is an interesting article on William McIlvanney and his Laidlaw books. I don’t know much about McIlvanney or these books, but this article made me want to read them soon.
Written by Allan Massie for the Wall Street Journal it is worth reading. Here is the link to the full article:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-father-of-tartan-noir-1437772631
The Telegraph has a great little article by Jake Kerridge. Kerridge interviews Maj Sjöwall about her and her partner, Per Wahlöö, and their Nordic Noir book series about detective Martin Beck. In the article it goes over how these two influenced a lot of current greats like Lee Child and Henning Mankell. This is a short article worth your time if you are fans of Nordic Noir like Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbø. Here is a link to the full article:
Lamentation by Joe Clifford is a noir book that takes place in New Hampshire. There is currently a big movement of Southern Noir in literature, but who doesn’t like a change of location once in a while? I received a copy of this book for a fair and honest review.
This book came out in late 2014 and is well received by book reviewers everywhere so far. Things won’t change much here, because I also loved this book.
Lamentation is told from the point of view of Jay. Jay is a smart guy who grow up in a small town in New Hampshire and is still there. He works for Tom who does estate sales. He basically moves things from the house of the dead and decides what is trash and what Tom can sell at flea markets and such. It is the middle of the winter and Tom doesn’t have any work for Jay and lays him off until things pick up. Jay has an ex-girlfriend, who he is still in love with, and they have a child together. Jay also has a brother, Chris, who in my opinion is the most interesting character of the book. Chris is also a thorn in Jay’s side. Chris is a homeless drug addict who is full of paranoid conspiracy theories.
When Chris is wanted for questioning in the murder of his business partner, it is in everybody’s best interest if Jay finds him before somebody else does. As Jay knows Chris is not capable of murder, he recruits his best friend and an old high school classmate that is now an investigator for an insurance company, to help him with his own investigation. The book gets more interesting as Jay looks into the murder and how Chris is involved. Small town rumors boil to the surface and Jay learns more about his brother and his town as he goes.
I loved this book! It is well written and has a story with multiple threads of interest that I could not read fast enough to see what it all meant. This does delve into some pretty dark themes and is immensely entertaining. If you are a fan of noir, mystery or crime fiction it is a book I believe you will enjoy. I look forward to reading more books like this from Clifford and wish him a long and lustrous career.
One of my favorite authors, Ken Bruen, recently put this book on his favorite 10 noir novels. I posted that article here:
I happened to be reading this book when I seen this list on which it appears.
This is the first book in Derek Raymond’s Factory series of which there are five books. The book was originally published in 1984 and takes place in London. This book is very interesting in the way it is written. It is written in the first person with a protagonist with no name. He is a detective in “The Factory” or the Unexplained Deaths Division. This case is of a middle-aged man who has been beaten to death. The way he is beaten is very savage as the killer or killers broke many bones and beat him severely. His death was not a quick one and was very painful. Our victim is a writer and as our nameless hero starts his investigation he comes across cassette tapes with our victims thoughts on them. The story is told as our protagonist in the present investigates new clues and interviews more suspects, it is also told in flashbacks with the tapes of our victim. As we bounce back and forth between the two we learn more about each as we find our hero and our victim have similar lives.
I’ll be honest, when I first started reading this I thought “why do noir fans think this is so great” as it did not suck me in right away. I did continue on and after about 50 pages I feel I got the rhythm of Raymond and really started to enjoy the story. Raymond did an amazing job, keeping the present protagonist’s words simple and to the point and our victim, who was a writer telling his story on cassette tapes, has a more elegant style, making it feel like two different authors. This book did intrigue me and I hope to read the other books in this series soon.
Favorite Tidbit: A French film was made in 1985 starring Charlotte Rampling, I have not seen this, but would like to.
This is a fascinating article on noir author Don Winslow. Learn more about his background, his influences, his writing procedures and how he does his research. Written by Erik Hedegaard for Men’s Journal it is a little long, but well worth your time. If you are not a fan of Winslow’s you may be after this article.
http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/don-winslows-war-20150629
Ken Bruen is one of my favorite authors, so when he picks his favorite books, I’m interested. I have read one of these and I’m currently reading another on the list. Looks like I have 8 more books to add to my “To Read” list. Check out the link below for the full list.
How many are you adding to your “To Read” list?
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