Sometimes you want a brilliant detective with complex mysteries, and sometimes you want a blue collar, grind-it-out, in-over-his-head, stubborn son-of-a-bitch with a revolver in his pocket a weakness for leggy dames. If you’re in the mood for the latter, then today’s list is for you.
- The Maltese Falcon- A classic from one of the masters of the genre; Dashiell Hammett. Even if you’ve seen the movie adaptation you owe it to yourself to go back and read this novel.
- The Black Dahlia– The first in James Elroy’s L.A. Quartet series about L.A. in the 40s/50s. Elroy mixes fact and fiction here; mixing in fictional characters and facts with what really happened. And while this book may not be gospel, it is a compelling mystery with some really well-developed characters.
- He Died with His Eyes Open– Brutal and unforgiving even by the standards of the genre.
- The Crow Girl- I love any novel with an unreliable narrator. The crimes in this one are particularly unsettling for both the protagonist and the reader. A modern entry into the genre that is as good as they come.
- Devil in a Blue Dress– In post-war L.A., an African American factory worker gets dragged into a mystery concerning the disappearance of a white woman. This is a great work of detective fiction and one of the few to focus on a non-white protagonist. A great read and the first in a long series of Easy Rawlins novels.
- I, the Jury– Mickey Spillane’s debut novel that introduced the world to private investigator Mike Hammer, one of the great protagonists of detective fiction. A great read that will have you buying up every Mike Hammer story you can find.
- A Drink Before the War– A couple of Boston P.I.s get caught up in politics and a gang war. The plot is a bit cliché, but it does a decent job integrating racial tensions and class struggles into the story to give it a sense of being grounded in the real world. The first in a series, all of which are a decent distraction and easy to read.
- The Godwulf Manuscript- You may have seen the TV show Spenser for Hire or watched that awful Mark Wahlberg Netflix movie that came out recently. Ignore them neither of them do justice to Robert B. Parker’s Spenser character. These books are smart and well-crafted and worthy of a look.
- A Rage in Harlem- The first book in Chester Himes Harlem Detective series about two black NYPD officers in the 1950’s. This series gives you all the hard-boiled sleuthing you could want along with a healthy dose of social commentary.
- The Last Good Kiss- James Crumley is one of the masters of crim fiction and worthy successor to the likes of Hammett and Chandler. This is the first book in his C.W. Sughrue series and it wastes no time drawing you down into its seedy world.