Here are 100 books that Red Harvest fans have personally recommended if you like
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I first became aware of the 1920s through movies such as Some Like it Hot and Thoroughly Modern Millie. I was immediately attracted to what I call the “Booze, beads, and boas.” I felt a kinship with the flappers who were experiencing freedom from the restrictions of the Victorian Era and living their best lives. They were making their own rules and doing it with style! As professor of library science, I researched the history of the American public library and of women in the 1850s-1920s. Today, I write historical cozy mysteries to live out my own glamorous flapper dreams.
I love the absolutely authentic atmosphere of this book – the clothes, the music, the booze -- and the exploration of the dark side of the 1920s.
I find some of the characters sympathetic, some repellent, and some impossible to understand, just as in real life. Regardless, I feel that I really get to know them by the end of the book, even if I still don’t understand them. I can’t help but make comparisons with that time period and now, a century later. So much has changed, yet so much remains the same.
I’ll be honest that it can be a depressing read, so I have to be in the right mood for it, but when I am, nothing else will satisfy.
As the summer unfolds, Nick is drawn into Gatsby's world of luxury cars, speedboats and extravagant parties. But the more he hears about Gatsby - even from what Gatsby himself tells him - the less he seems to believe. Did he really go to Oxford University? Was Gatsby a hero in the war? Did he once kill a man? Nick recalls how he comes to know Gatsby and how he also enters the world of his cousin Daisy and her wealthy husband Tom. Does their money make them any happier? Do the stories all connect? Shall we come to know…
Joth Proctor is an under-employed, criminal defense lawyer based in Arlington, Virginia, where a mix of southern charm, shady business dealings, and Washington, D.C. intrigue pervade the story. Upon the suspicious death of the wife of a close friend, Proctor enters a tangled web of drug and alcohol abuse, real…
I like fiction which makes a character confront what the poet Thom Gunn called ‘the blackmail of his circumstances’: where you are born, the expectations of you. I like to think I am very much a self-created individual, but I can never escape what I was born into; the self is a prison that the will is trying to break out of. I like literature which reflects that challenge.
I could have chosen any Raymond Chandler novel for this list; he is such a brilliant stylist, one of the best in the language.
His lugubrious, heavy-drinking, first-person detective Philip Marlowe is my kind of fictional hero, a genre-defining character, perpetually alone though he yearns for the glamorous women he meets.
Raymond Chandler's first three novels, published here in one volume, established his reputation as an unsurpassed master of hard-boiled detective fiction.
The Big Sleep, Chandler's first novel, introduces Philip Marlowe, a private detective inhabiting the seamy side of Los Angeles in the 1930s, as he takes on a case involving a paralysed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail and murder.
In Farewell, My Lovely, Marlowe deals with the gambling circuit, a murder he stumbles upon, and three very beautiful but potentially deadly women.
In The High Window, Marlowe searches the California underworld for a priceless gold coin and finds himself…
Among other things, I'm an existentialist. A well-constructed mystery novel is an existential puzzle given to the reader to solve at his/her leisure, and the noir sub-genre has the further subtext that the protagonist—and the reader—are doomed in some way even if the solution is nailed. Romance novels are drivel and have no basis in reality, but noir and other types of mystery fiction reflect the way that the world works: you may solve this puzzle problem, but then you are left to a vast world that is rife with puzzles but without a coherent plot. The detective trudges on, achieves a kind of satisfaction, and then is thrust into the next crisis.
A treasure trove of noir short fiction, an impressive anthology of American greed, crime, and comeuppance by some of the genre’s greatest authors including Mickey Spillane, Evan Hunter, Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, Joyce Carol Oates, Dennis Lehane, Cornell Woolrich, and editor Ellroy. The 39 selected stories are a feast of excellence, a wide-ranging buffet of tasty tales from 1923 to 2007—makes me drool just thinking about a re-read.
A magisterial anthology of American noir writing in the 20th century by the best-selling author of the LA Quartet: The Black Dahlia. The Big Nowhere , LA Confidential and White Jazz. In his intoduction to The Best American Noir of the Century, James Ellroy writes, "noir is the most scrutinised offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction. It's the long drop off the short pier and the wrong man and the wrong woman in perfect misalliance. It's the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that goes bad." Offering…
Jake Sledge, a rugged ex-cop turned private eye, teams up with his colossal partner Bobo to navigate the gritty streets of River City.
A murdered lawyer drags them into a web of political intrigue, neo-Nazi thugs, and bloody showdowns. With sharp wit and hard-hitting action, Jake tackles scumbags the only…
Among other things, I'm an existentialist. A well-constructed mystery novel is an existential puzzle given to the reader to solve at his/her leisure, and the noir sub-genre has the further subtext that the protagonist—and the reader—are doomed in some way even if the solution is nailed. Romance novels are drivel and have no basis in reality, but noir and other types of mystery fiction reflect the way that the world works: you may solve this puzzle problem, but then you are left to a vast world that is rife with puzzles but without a coherent plot. The detective trudges on, achieves a kind of satisfaction, and then is thrust into the next crisis.
Watching
bad people self-destruct is hard work, but author Cain makes sure that the bad
people get what they deserve. A drifter takes a job at a roadside diner that is
run by an old man and his beautiful and unhappy wife; the two youngsters begin
a dangerous affair and then plot to kill the husband so that the girl inherits
the property. But matters do not turn out as they planned. The novel has been
adapted for film at least seven times, with the favorite being the 1946 movie
starring Lana Turner.
'Nobody has ever quite pulled it off the way Cain does, not Hemingway, and not even Raymond Chandler' Tom Wolfe
'It is no accident that movies based on three [of Cain's novels] helped to define the genre known as film noir' NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
'The most starkly elemental thing that has been written for years' EVENING STANDARD
The torrid story of Frank Chambers, the amoral drifter, Cora, the sullen and brooding wife, and Nick Papadakis, the amiable but inconvenient husband, has become a classic of its kind, and established Cain as a major novelist with a spare and…
Among other things, I'm an existentialist. A well-constructed mystery novel is an existential puzzle given to the reader to solve at his/her leisure, and the noir sub-genre has the further subtext that the protagonist—and the reader—are doomed in some way even if the solution is nailed. Romance novels are drivel and have no basis in reality, but noir and other types of mystery fiction reflect the way that the world works: you may solve this puzzle problem, but then you are left to a vast world that is rife with puzzles but without a coherent plot. The detective trudges on, achieves a kind of satisfaction, and then is thrust into the next crisis.
Detective
Turner is serious, author Bellem is not. Eleven short stories in 8-page comic
format from the monthly pulp magazine Hollywood Detective; humorist
S.J. Perelman describes Dan Turner as "the apotheosis of all private
detectives"; the Dan Turner stories are the flip side of Chandler and Hammett,
with delightful use of real and imagined slang: guns are 'roscoes,' a woman is
a 'doll,' 'cutie, 'frail,' or ‘dame.'
Included in most issues of "Hollywood Detective" pulp magazine was an eight-page Dan Turner comic. Eleven of those comics are reprinted in this "Best of" trade paperback (comic book sized pages).
I grew up in a small, Midwestern town where people sinned Monday through Saturday, then went to church on Sunday to stock up on absolution for the coming week. It was also a place where people wanted to be well-thought of, if thought of at all, and could be at their best when things were at their worst. I wanted to escape as soon as possible, yet now as old memories become more accessible than recent ones, I realize that I never escaped at all. I write about small towns, perhaps to avenge, perhaps as homage; perhaps because it is still, after all these years, what I best know.
With biting satire and elegiac prose, Main Street is the paragon of stories set in small towns.
Author Sinclair Lewis was obviously not enamored of small towns, and like Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, is perhaps exorcising some demons from his own upbringing. Nevertheless, perhaps unable to help himself, he instills his protagonist, Carol Milford (Kennicott) with a “Never give up” small town value. At the end she is undaunted. Even though she’s been stifled at nearly every turn, in her own words she has “kept the faith.”
I love the work of Sinclair Lewis. I based the character of July Huffaker in Delphic Oracle, U.S.A. on Elmer Gantry, and when I taught in medical schools, kept copies of Arrowsmith in my office that I gave to students and residents interested in a career in academic medicine. “Read this,” I told them. “If you still want in, come talk to…
In this classic satire of small-town America, beautiful young Carol Kennicott comes to Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, with dreams of transforming the provincial old town into a place of beauty and culture. But she runs into a wall of bigotry, hypocrisy and complacency. The first popular bestseller to attack conventional ideas about marriage, gender roles, and small town life, Main Street established Lewis as a major American novelist.
I studied history in college and, after a few misspent years in broadcasting, worked in marketing and public relations for several companies. In my free time I wrote articles and books on historical events and people. A dozen years ago, on a trip to San Francisco and Alcatraz, I conceived of an idea for a novel. True to my background, it was based on a real historical event – the 1962 escape of three men in a raft from the prison. It wasn't until my mid-sixties when I felt ready to step out of my non-fiction comfort zone and write my first novel. Can't wait to start the next one.
I could easily have all five of my picks be novels by Sinclair Lewis. I'll stop at two.
In George Babbitt, Lewis's titular lead, we have a character whose very name became synonymous with conformity. What I absolutely love about this book has a lot to do with the bold plot choices Lewis takes with Babbitt. I write this knowing that many critics did not like the book because, they complained, there really wasn't a plot! (Cripes, what book were they reading?)
These plot turns include his dalliances with socialism (which runs counter to his position as the city of Zenith's most successful realtor) and a socialist woman.
Prosperous and socially prominent, George Babbitt appears to have everything a man could wish: good health, a fine family, and a profitable business in a booming Midwestern city. But the middle-aged real estate agent is shaken from his self-satisfaction by a growing restlessness with the limitations of his life. When a personal crisis forces a reexamination of his values, Babbitt mounts a rebellion against social expectations — jeopardizing his reputation and business standing as well as his marriage. Widely considered Sinclair Lewis's greatest novel, this satire of the American social landscape created a sensation upon its 1922 publication. Babbitt's name…
I studied history in college and, after a few misspent years in broadcasting, worked in marketing and public relations for several companies. In my free time I wrote articles and books on historical events and people. A dozen years ago, on a trip to San Francisco and Alcatraz, I conceived of an idea for a novel. True to my background, it was based on a real historical event – the 1962 escape of three men in a raft from the prison. It wasn't until my mid-sixties when I felt ready to step out of my non-fiction comfort zone and write my first novel. Can't wait to start the next one.
This is not a novel, but a collection of Lardner's newspapers columns and short stories, many of which revolve around a bush league pitcher named Jack Keefe who tells stories to his friend.
I love baseball and am fascinated by the early days of the game, and Lardner's Jack makes me feel as if I am experiencing life in baseball's “bushes” back in the 1920s. Oh, yea, that's the other draw of this book for me a view, from his columns and other stories, of the daily grind of American life in an era that was much more than flappers and bathtub gin. (Although there is a bit of both therein).
This collection brings together twenty-one of Lardner's best pieces, including the six Jack Keefe stories that comprise You Know Me, Al, as well as such familiar favorites as "Alibi Ike," "Some Like Them Cold," and "Guillible's Travels."
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date…
I’ve been a journalist who’s focused on culture, particularly film, and especially classic film and film noir. That sparked me to write two crime novels, with a third on the way, for Level Best Books. The first came out in February. The next will reach the market in May 2025. The third will come out in 2026. For more information, please go to my website.
Like other private detectives, LA-based Lew Archer sees too much—too much bad or at least questionable behavior. Here, it seems to take the form of a runaway—a rich kid who has “escaped” confinement from his exclusive 60’s reform school. Despite his lack of style and color, Archer acts confident he’ll find him. The only problem: The parents—his client—aren’t helping him very much.
His disappearance case threatens to disappear, providing an especially clever irony and supporting what I believe is author Macdonald’s favorite insight: The problem begins and ends in the family. The only question is, with all the darkness the parents create and Archer encounters, will he see enough to solve the case? I love this story, in part, becomes it’s more noir than any other Lew Archer story.
In The Far Side of the Dollar, private investigator Lew Archer is looking for an unstable rich kid who has run away from an exclusive reform school—and into the arms of kidnappers. Why are his desperate parents so loath to give Archer the information he needs to find him? And why do all trails lead to a derelict Hollywood hotel where starlets and sailors once rubbed elbows with two-bit grifters—and where the present clientele includes a brand-new corpse? The result is Ross Macdonald at his most exciting, delivering 1,000-volt shocks to the nervous system while uncovering the venality and depravity…
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
I’m a former crime reporter for the Columbus Dispatch. If my byline appeared on a story, you didn’t want your name anywhere in it, because you were most likely in a cell at the county jail, a bed in the ICU, or a cold locker at the county morgue. As a reporter, I often covered the same organized crime that had been so prevalent in my youth. Long before I became a reporter, I had a fascination with organized crime. Growing up in the Ohio Valley, the mob was as much a part of our communities as the steel mills. Those stories helped inspire my upcoming book, The Last Hitman.
If I’m being honest—and I’m guessing Ben Shepherd would like me to be honest—I’d be content to list five Burke books here.
Burke is a national treasure. I don’t aggravate easily, but it aggravates me that he doesn’t have a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He is one of the best combination writers and storytellers on the planet.
In this book, Burke’s protagonist, Dave Robicheaux, investigates a series of murders of prostitutes. There’s a connection to the murders and New Orleans gangster Julie “Baby Feet” Balboni.
In the book, Robicheaux also has conversations with Confederate General John Bell Hood, which has nothing to do with organized crime, but is a great example of Burke’s prowess as a writer. It was made into a 2009 movie starring Tommy Lee Jones as Robicheaux and John Goodman as Balboni. Robicheaux’s sidekick, Clete Purcell, is one of the best characters in crime fiction.
The sixth in the New York Times bestselling Dave Robicheaux series delivers a heart-pounding bayou manhunt—and features “one of the coolest, earthiest heroes in thrillerdom” (Entertainment Weekly ).
When Hollywood invades New Iberia Parish to film a Civil War epic, restless specters waiting in the shadows for Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux are reawakened—ghosts of a history best left undisturbed.
Hunting a serial killer preying on the lawless young, Robicheaux comes face-to-face with the elusive guardians of his darkest torments— who hold the key to his ultimate salvation or a final, fatal downfall.
