American Noir: 11 Classic Crime Novels of the 1930s, 40s, & 50s: A Library of America Boxed Set

This is a collection of crime novels that (mostly) also qualify as literature. It’s great. I would suggest to potential readers, though, that they save “Thieves Like Us” for last because it’s a tough act to follow.

Norman Mailer was certainly a product of his times, but how wonderful would it have been if he had lived to be 110, and could comment on the wild ride of the 2010's? He labeled himself a left-conservative, and in a time so polarized as today, would he be able to access all points of view and retain his wild wit and generosity? Is there any one like him around today? I suspect that a person of Mailer’s temperament would be unable to flourish beside today's (possibly necessary) scorched earth, hashtag movements. How lucky we readers are that Library of America publishers continue to preserve and put out such important volumes. Raymond Carver, Sinclair Lewis, Willa Cather, and a long line of other literary immortals fill their bountiful catalog. By focusing on Mailer's literary activity in the '60's, editor J. Michael Lennon delivers (in two volumes) four important books, An American Dream, Why Are We in Vietnam?, The Armies of the Night, and Miami and the Siege of Chicago. The second volume includes the entertaining and insightful essays of a man who fought a war, hobnobbed with iconic celebrities, politicians, and carried on a personal life that would shock most rock-stars. I am enjoying this curated set, as it would be almost impossible to negotiable Mailer's work on my own.

Pulp becomes flesh, and lives. These stories have informed almost every great crime/mystery book today. This is where much of it began. The atmosphere that these written stories on paper created, read by holding a book and turning pages, getting ink on your fingertips and the damp, musty smell of pages in your nostrils- if you were lucky enough to have an old copy at hand- formed a blueprint for other crafts, like film and music. These are good. They will be even better re-read a few years down the line when the clean, new pages in this edition absorb the breath of your own rooms.

This is an excellent collection of the best noir outside of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler (their own box sets contain their works). Beautifully bound out of the best materials, this is a true pleasure to read. The collection of noir is perfect, with some of the best-known mixed in with some of the deep tracks. This is definitely a recommended purchase for anybody looking for a bit more grit in their lives.

From this edition, V1: The Postman Always Rings Twice: The Dark Side of Passion By James M. Cain The Thirties were a dark time that gave rise to novels of dark passions, and none darker than lustful sex and murder, and in the case of this one, a devilish twist on Calvinist predestination. Read instead of the postman, fate; fate rings twice, or as many times as necessary, to bring the journey of a life to its unalterable end. In his gritty, dirty (as in atmospheric; you can almost smell and taste the grime of these characters’ lives) crime novel, James M. Cain put the worst aspects of human nature on full display, a reason why Boston saw fit to ban The Postman Always Rings Twice. It's a story you probably know well, as Cain’s novel has been adapted to film at least seven times internationally, not to mention adaptations in other media. However, it is still worth reading not just because it holds up well more than eighty years after its first publication but also for its cultural impact in the context of its time, a more prudish America. Frank Chambers, a drifter with a criminal past, lands at a the Twin Oaks Tavern, owned and operated by Nick Papadakis, an outgoing, hardworking Greek. Frank and he strike up a friendship. Nick encourages Frank to stay and help out. Frank resists and prepares to leave, when he sees Nick’s wife, Cora. Everything changes in that instant, for Frank and for Cora. Between them surges a spark of animal magnetism that instantly binds each to the other. Shortly, they engage in rough, passionate sex and Cora reveals her discontentment with old greasy Nick. The two hatch a plot to kill Nick, but it fails because of a stray cat. Realizing he has escaped a nasty fate, Frank tries to get away from Cora and Nick, who is under the delusion he suffered a near fatal accident. Then, by happenstance some time last, Frank runs into Nick, who cajoles him into returning to the tavern. Soon enough, Frank and Cora take up again and hatch yet another plot, a car accident, that proves successful in killing Nick. After, badly injured, Frank has to contend with a very suspicious cop. He’s saved when another cop turns him onto a slick lawyer, Katz. Katz gets both off with some extremely sleazy tactics that threaten to turn Frank and Cora against each other, as well as reveals a hefty insurance policy Nick has taken out on his life (a plot device Cain uses to greater effect in his 1943 novel Double Indemnity). Though this revelation causes Frank to speculate as to whether Cora has set him up, the pair patch things up, in no small part because Cora tells him she is carrying his child. While it appears the two will be happy lovebirds and a settled married couple, fate comes calling for its second shot at Frank and Cora (having already had two whacks at Nick). Thinking Cora is suffering a miscarriage, Frank drives like a maniac to get her to the hospital, when he crashes and Cora dies. Given his past, the cops and courts don’t believe Cora died by accident. Frank pays the price. So, not only will fate have its way but also the readers who are usually more comfortable when justice is served, regardless of how that my come about. An important novel for how it deals frankly and openly, even for modern times, with the baser aspects of human nature. From this edition, V1: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? The Dance of Absurdity By Horace McCoy When your world falls down around you, when most of everything you believed true proves false, as happened to many in the Great Depression, then the entire idea of existence, of your existence can go from optimistic to hopeless, from rational (or at least somewhat rational) to completely absurd, in the sense of meaningless. With this in mind, you have a reasonable framework for understanding why Robert Syverten stands before a judge receiving his death sentence for the murder of Gloria Beatty. Here you have the bright eternal optimist, Robert, dancing with the ground-down pessimist, Gloria, both isolated in a ring of absurdity, the marathon dance ring (popular entertainment in the 1920s and 1930s). Robert and Gloria meet by accident at a movie studio, where both have failed to land jobs as extras. Gloria persuades Robert, who is as down and out as she, to partner with her in a dance marathon down on a pier in Los Angeles. As the two get to know each other over the course of the five weeks they dance and walk together, readers learn about their lives. Robert’s a farm boy who came to L.A. to become a director, a wildly optimistic pursuit as he has no training or film experience. However, he is stubbornly hopeful, always trying to look on the bright side of life. Robert could not have found a more polar opposite to himself than Gloria if he had tried. She sees only the darkness in the world and openly and often tells him she wishes she were dead, that she would die, that once she had tried killing herself. Her parents are dead; she fled her relatives in West Texas, where her uncle attempted sexually abusing her. In addition, she is argumentative and pugnacious, calling for a married pregnant contestant to get an abortion, while herself having sex with one of the promoters to advance her chances of winning. For five weeks, they live and dance in the confines of the dance hall. The audiences build and cheer them on, attracted by the promise of drama on the floor. Couples, pushed to and beyond their limits in derbies (extended periods of racing to avoid elimination), collapse, arguments and fights breakout, and, in the end, a fatal shooting (not Robert and Gloria’s) take place, ending the competition abruptly. In other words, the pair, and the other contestants, exist in a pressure cooker of frustration, false hope, and fear of elimination and a return to an ever rougher, more unforgiving world. It’s enough to wear even an optimist like Robert to the nub, to the point where even the absurd seems reasonable. And the ultimate of that, Robert becoming the agent helping Gloria exit her dismal world of pain. Then accounting for his action with a remembrance of how his grandfather dispatched an injured horse they both loved, saying, “They shoot horses, don’t they?” By extension, why should suffering humans be treated any differently and allowed to linger and suffer? Notable for transforming an otherwise inexplicable murder into an excursion into philosophical nihilism. From this edition, V1: Thieves Like Us: Love and Death in 30s West Texas By Edward Anderson Among the most glamorized and followed criminals of the Great Depression were bank robbers. How people might have found anything admirable in these people—among them Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly, a sprinkling of the better known bandits—should be no surprise to those who experienced the Great Recession. As Anderson’s Bowie Bowers observes, “Them capitalist fellows are thieves like us….They rob widows and orphans.” If you find yourself nodding in agreement with Bowie then you’ll want to join him, his young girlfriend Keechie and his brothers in crime T-Dub and Chicamaw as they pull off a series of successful bank robberies, battle the “Laws,” and traverse west Texas of the 1930s. Like many, if not most, of noir crime fiction of the period, the nihilism of the characters and plot are nearly palpable from the first pages of Thieves Like Us. These outlaws regard themselves as a unique band of brothers, an A-team of thieves like none other. At the same time, they continually express the idea their robbery proceeds are a stake on a settled life of little care. Of course, the next job lures them, like the Sirens leading ancient sailors onto the shoals. And here the old saying, “No honor among thieves,” bears no weight as these fellows, particularly Bowie, prove themselves to be a loyal bunch to each other. Irony abounds in this notion, as loyalty leads to some pretty bad outcomes for these guys. Within Anderson’s tale of life on adrenaline and thievery, readers will discover a love story, that between Bowie and Keechie. With Keechie beside him, Bowie manages to breakaway from the gang for a while. He and Keechie set up housekeeping in the hills of west Texas and New Orleans, fleeing when locals seem too suspicious of them, neither realizing that they are the subject of regular newspaper features, much like Bonnie and Clyde, but also because Bowie can’t help acting out his aggression in even trivial confrontations; Anderson strikes a fine balance of innocence and viciousness in his Bowie. Naturally, in period fiction as this, and especially in one heavily intertwined with fatalism, things can’t be expected to workout for the best, at least not best for characters like Bowie and Keechie. How the wheels come off the getaway car is left for readers to discover for themselves. Notable for the way Anderson’s story rings with veracity (he based his novel on an interview with his cousin, Roy Johnson, who was serving a life sentence for armed robbery) and the effective use of argot, now pretty much extinct, which proves transportive. From this volume, V1: The Big Clock: Racing the Clock of Life By Kenneth Fearing The Big Clock is a different kind of murder/crime novel, but nonetheless dark and tawdry as American Noir should be. It’s different because the murder doesn’t come until well into the novel, and then really isn’t the focus of the suspenseful race against the clock. The focus is George Stroud, an ambitious magazine writer/editor, a man who drinks hard and cheats on his wife, who thinks quite highly of himself, of his intelligence, and his appreciation of aesthetics, particularly when it comes to art. The plot is a finely honed chase story about an innocent man, at least innocent of murder, trying to save his life. Even more, it’s a keen psychological probing of a cunning mind, that of George Stroud. Outlined, the story begins with George grumbling to himself at a party thrown by his employer, Earl Janoth, chairman of Janoth Enterprises, an agglomeration of magazines. There he meets Pauline Delos, a magnetic blonde, who also happens to be seeing Janoth. Sometime later George and Pauline hookup, when George’s wife and daughter are safely out of town. The pair have a wild weekend in New York, where they buy a painting that proves a key clue in the tale, and upstate in Albany. At the end, he sees her home, but not to her door because Janoth is arriving at that precise moment. George holds back in the shadows, unrecognized. Next thing he knows, Pauline is dead and the most likely murderer is Janoth. In a twist, though, to protect himself, Janoth and his business partner concoct a tale about the mystery man, who is the only one who can place Janoth at Pauline’s apartment, with the objective of eliminating him. They sic the full resources of the publishing house on finding the man, and they put George in charge. George, faced with the task of ferreting out himself, has to continually throw his team of investigative reporters off his scent, until, at the end, they have pretty much closed in on him. It’s then that Fearing springs a surprise, the seed of which he has placed in plain view at the outset of the novel. Readers will find two features of the novel particularly interesting. First, the clock of the title; it serves as both a sort of stopwatch counting down the hours and minutes until George finds himself exposed. It also functions as an overarching symbol of the relentless grind of life, it’s unalterable march to the fatal moment in every life. The second are the Louise Patterson paintings; one hanging in George’s office builds tension as we readers and George wait for somebody to identify it as a Patterson. Even more, though, George’s attachment to his Patterson paintings, and specifically the one from the antique shop, speak volumes about George’s character: his self-pride, his superior aesthetic eye, and his willingness to behave recklessly to preserve is purchase, which is really part and parcel of his identity. Notable not for its suspense and a level of sophistication greater than most noir crime novels. From this volume, V1: Nightmare Alley: One of a Kind Noir Tale By William Lindsay Gresham There isn’t much that is truly unique, especially within genre fiction, and usually that’s the way readers like it, since they approach these books with certain expectations. William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley most assuredly fulfills those expectations by creating a dark world and populating with people who live in the shadows. Then Gresham goes beyond what you expect, deep into carney life, deeper into spiritualism, and deeper still into the scarred human psyche. His novel teems with double crosses, murder, sex (even touching the edges of SM), and the willful and cruelest twisting of people’s beliefs and grief for personal profit. Stan is a haunted young man when readers first meet him in a traveling Ten-in-One (a sideshow usually with ten acts in a row, some involving “freaks,” for one admission). He has plenty of ghosts in his past, all issuing from psychologically trying childhood. Imagine the worst things a boy can see and you’ll have foresight into Stan’s motivations. He learns much about carney life, including what a geek is, an alcoholic who will do anything for a bottle, even bite the heads off live chickens to amuse the yokels. He also meets Zeena, a mentalist, from whom he learns the tricks of the trade and with whom he carries on an affair. Her husband, while not a geek, is an alcoholic who comes to what most assume an accidental end. Stan steps into the act, and why not, as he’s already been in the man’s bed. At the Ten-in-One, he meets sweet, young Molly, the electric girl. He carries on with her while perfecting his skills as a mentalist and also delving into the world of spiritualism (basically, the belief that the soul exists after death, with the added feature that the dead wish and try to communicate with the living). Stan harbors and cultivates the vision of hooking a big fish and taking him or her for a bundle. He even goes so far as to gain ordination in the spiritualist church. Stan’s quite the smart fellow, well versed in mentalism, electricity and devices, religion, and most important of all, the human desire to believe. It’s this entire span of the novel, the Act 2, if you will, that really elevates it and sets it apart from the general run of American noir. Tossed into this is psychology, particularly after Stan, haunted even more by his past, visits psychologist Lilith Ritter. If Stan defines blackguard then Lilith is the scoundrel who sets off his petard. It is she who supplies him the mark he’s hungered for. And it nearly all works out for Stan, if only he had been able to surmount his nightmares. Everything, then, devolves in the last act, wherein Stan finds himself older, sicker, addicted, and sliding into his past, to where he began, only now as the freak. Really, though, will you be able to muster even a dollop of sympathy for him? Noir writers of the period tended to live hard lives and few were unfamiliar with the bottle. Gresham, who committed suicide at 53, partially blind and suffering with cancer, led a particularly eventful life that included folk singing in Greenwich Village cafes, jobs in journalism and advertising, more than a year as a medic with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Later his first wife, Joy Davidman, and he became enamored of C.S. Lewis and said’s return to and advocacy of christianity. Joy Davidman, after her marriage to Gresham dissolved, married Lewis. Gresham went on to explore other spiritual interests, among them occultism and L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics. In other words, a most interesting fellow. From this volume, V1: I Married a Dead Man: For You to Answer: Who Done It? By By Cornell Woolrich (as William Irish) While you may not recognize the name Frank Stockton, you surely know his short story “The Lady or the Tiger?” You the reader are left to decide if the woman or the tiger exits the door at the end. And so with Woolrich’s twisting and turning noir classic, who done in the dastardly ex-boyfriend, husband or wife? This really gives nothing away as you know from the outset that somebody is dead and two people, a couple, wonder which of the two brought him to his well deserved end. What makes Woolrich’s novel so interesting, so propulsive, is how he introduces plot twist after plot twist at just the right moment, each time pushing you forward to the end when you confront that Stockton-ish question. After a prologue in which a married couple with a child do a tortured dance around a horror they share, the story opens at the beginning, when Helen is a young woman, around nineteen, fleeing the city. Her boyfriend has left her pregnant and with five dollars (about fifty dollars these days). She buys a train ticket and on the train meets a young, very much in love couple, Patrice and Hugh Hazzard, returning home from Europe, where they have lived for some time. Like Helen, Patrice is pregnant, but unlike her, Patrice has a husband, apparently money, a family to go to, everything Helen lacks. They strike up a train friendship and share the bathroom before retiring. Helen even tries on Patrice’s wedding ring. Then the train crashes, Helen lands in the hospital. There authorities mistake her for Patrice (that ring, you know), who, along with Hugh, has died in the accident. What to do? Out of desperation, she assumes the identity of Patrice and goes home to the Hazzard family, painted by Woolrich as an ideal family in an ideal house in an ideal town, all Helen never had and always dreamed of. They accept her and the baby as their daughter-in-law. All proceeds swimmingly, until the old boyfriend turns up. How he learns about her new life, how she avoids detection, how she finally frees herself, what happens with Hugh’s brother, Bill, all this Woolrich handles craftily to create suspense and the novel’s driving force. And then, in the end, there’s the question that tears at Patrice and Bill, the one which Woolrich leaves you to answer for yourself. Frank Stockton must have smiled down on that (he died in 1902). From this volume, V2: The Killer Inside Me: The Classic Tale of a Psychopath By Jim Thompson Lou Ford is a consummate serial killer created by a writer who knew his way around the dark nooks and crannies of the troubled, impassioned, and diseased minds of wayward men and women better than most, and who masterfully portrayed these traits in simple, stark, and powerful language. The Killer Inside Me, perhaps his best, serves as the blueprint for the nearly perfect serial killer novel because it plunks you down inside the mind of the killer; you see the world through his off kilter eyes. If you're looking for crime fiction that stands heads and shoulders above the usual genre fare stuffed with overly dramatized and generally implausible protagonists, The Killer Inside Me, along with a handful of other novels, may be what you want. The Killer Inside Me offers you Lou Ford, the aw-shucks deputy who appears a little slow on the uptake, who handily dispenses clichés upon every occasion, who, in short, strikes you as a pretty nice, ineffective guy in the beginning and then, amazingly, given his predilection for murder, a sympathetic, tormented man. It's a credit to Thompson's skill that you feel for Ford in the end. Don't assume that just because The Killer Inside Me appeared in 1952 that the prose is censored milquetoast. Thompson's writing is blunt and raw, as in the scene in which Lou cold-bloodedly kills Joyce, the prostitute he's been frequenting and abusing as he executes his plan of revenge against local big-deal Chester Conway: "I backed her against the wall, slugging, and it was like pounding a pumpkin. Hard, then everything giving away at once." Or this, after inflicting a brutal beating upon his fiancé, leaving her barely alive while he awaits the person he plans to frame for her murder: "I sat down and tried to read the paper. I tried to keep my eyes on it. But the light wasn't very good, not good enough to read by, and she kept moving around. It looked like she couldn't lie still." Those are the thoughts of a true sociopath. Don't fear extraneous excursions into back stories and side narratives; or excessive descriptions of the countryside or characters. Thompson gives exactly enough to provide context and move the story along swiftly. That's no mean ability; it earned him a living as a screen and television writer for Stanley Kubrick and others. Do expect sharply drawn characters. You'll get to know Lou, Joyce, Elmer, Chester, Johnnie (who put his trust in a psychopath who understood only self preservation), Amy (who campaigned to marry Lou to unfortunate results), and the others not through elaborate descriptions but through what they say and do. And do expect a realistic serial killer who goes about his business in a straightforward way, a killer who is at heart a sociopath, a manipulator of people, who Thompson based on emerging research on psychopathology, research that forms the foundation of modern thinking about these people. Highly recommended not only as the best crime fiction but also a fine literary experience. From this volume, V2: The Talented Mr. Ripley: The Most Artful Deceiver By Patricia Highsmith Psychological thrillers don’t get much better than this. Patricia Highsmith plants you deep within the brain of American sociopath Tom Ripley as he deceives one person after another, assumes the life of a young man he envies, and lashes out murderously to achieve his ends. Even today, more than sixty years after its first printing, with truckloads of psychological crime novels featuring psychos carted of to the remainder bins, and a swamp of crime movies and television shows spilling from our screens, this still stands out as an achievement of perfectly blending literary and hard-edged noir. Succinctly, Tom Ripley is a young man in his mid-twenties existing in New York City. He really can’t do anything, doesn’t own anything, rooms with friends, and engages in petty forgery and scamming, not to make money but to amuse himself. As he says, he is very disappointed in his life and what he has made of it. Then his life changes. Mr. Herbert Greenleaf approaches him thinking him a close friend of his son, Dickie. Dickie has been taking an extended vacation in Italy trying his hand at painting, when his father needs and wants him back home in the family boat building business. Would Tom, all expenses paid, of course, sail to Italy and persuade Dickie to return home? Tom connects with Dickie in short order and methodically befriends him. What Tom admires most about Dickie is his smooth approach to life, his nice manner, fueled, naturally, by lots of money. In a letter to Dickie, that is, Tom as Dickie, Marge Sherwood, Dickie’s wannabe girlfriend, writes of Tom, “He’s just a nothing ,,,” Perfect, as Tom is a blank canvas awaiting paint, and Dickie is the paint. Tom hatches a plan, really sort of a scatterbrained plan that feels almost spontaneous, to kill Dickie, which he does. Then the adventure truly begins as Tom dodges, weaves, and deceives (the police, Marge, Mr. Greenleaf, and Dickie’s friends) his way around Italy, subsuming Dickie into the very core of his being. So perfectly does he do this that later in the novel he begins to believe he has a talent for painting and an appreciation of art. And no secret here, as you probably know the Ripley story turned into a five-novel series, he gets away with it. Highsmith’s Ripley is a brilliant creation. He’s at various times a knockabout, a petulant child, a hedonist, a terrorized boy, a self-doubter, an explosive killer, a conniver, and a man unable to understand or even define his own identity. Paramount, though, above all, he thinks of only one person, only what’s good for Tom Ripley. Striping away Highsmith’s literary polishing, he sounds quite despicable. Yet, credit to Highsmith, you find yourself liking him, hoping, too, that his bobbing will succeed. Forget that you know, like all sociopaths, he doesn’t experience emotion but mimics it. Pay attention to Highsmith’s sentences and descriptions, the declarative style she employs here; you’ll see how it helps us feel Tom’s coolness, his emotional void. Even her plotting captures the essence of Tom, his lackadaisical ambling approach to life, by giving us the impression stuff just happens. A situation presents itself and Tom improvises on the spot. So we readers feel like we’re just skipping from situation to situation, almost as if Highsmith is making it up as she goes, perhaps chortling at each twist. A must read for everybody who loves their psychological fiction on the highest order. From this volume, V2: Pick-Up: (The Color Darker Than Black By Charles Willeford Nihilism threads through most noir novels. It’s not often, though, when it dominates the plot and characters completely, as it does in Charles Willeford’s terrifically pulpy, frequently salacious, and thoroughly (in a good way) depressing tale of a death wish thwarted. It’s San Francisco in the mid-Fifties, but this is the Frisco where the sun rarely shines and fog hangs thick and wet over cold streets. Harry Jordan trained as a fine arts painter. He was good at it. But soon enough, he judged himself not quite good enough for the art big time, and this was after he abandoned his wife and baby son to paint. He odd jobs in San Francisco as a fry cook. One night, in walks a dame like none he’s ever laid eyes on, Helen Meredith. Remember the year when you read Willeford’s description, because she sounds like a cross between a Goth and a punker. They immediately fall together as they share a powerful bond: they are admittedly and happily alcoholics. The two become a pair and live in Harry’s rented room. They drink constantly, literally into oblivion. Harry can’t hold a job and cater to Helen’s neediness, possessiveness, and overwhelming addiction that supersedes his own. Life no longer matters to each. They decide to commit suicide together. They make the attempt and they fail. They check themselves into a psychiatric hospital, but they are out in a blink, no better off. Now they are dirt broke. Helen begins going out on her own to pick up men for a drink. Meanwhile, she gets sicker and sicker; he gets more depressed. Suicide seems the sensible solution once again. It partially succeeds. And it devastates Harry, who really, truly loves Helen. He ends up in jail, where he pleads guilty to murder and urges the police and prosecutor to speed things along so he can get into the gas chamber. But, you know, when life hasn’t gone your way ever, why expect it to drift in your favor now? Harry lands back in the hospital consumed by fear that they will find him insane, when he declares himself perfectly normal, and deprive him of what he desires, death. Then events occur that startle Harry and jolt us readers, and the book ends on a totally unexpected reveal—which means you should avoid at all costs jumping ahead. How to make sense of all this? you might wonder. Well, remember the era, the Fifties. We usually picture these as halcyon days of rising prosperity, growing suburban life, idyllic families, bright colors; in short, happy days. We typically don’t think about marginalized people, about the isolation of suburban life, of cities slowly abandoned, of crime, and problems with substance abuse as ways to cope with the big issue of the day: strictly enforced conformity. If a phrase can characterize an era, the Age of Conformity seems to best capture the spirit, or rather dispirit of the Fifties. In short, perfect soil for the blooming of existential and atheistic nihilism seeded in preceding decades. And there you have Harry Jordan. From this volume, V2: Down There (aka Shoot the Piano Player): Don’t Wake the Sleeping Dog By David Goodis From this volume, V2: Down There (aka Shoot the Piano Player): Don’t Wake the Sleeping Dog By David Goodis File this classic noir tale, made all the more famous by François Truffaut’s retitled 1960 film adaptation Shoot the Piano Player, under “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.” As Goodis’ very dark novel illustrates, they might yawn and lick you, or, more likely in noir land, they might be wounded by the past and explode to engulf you in violence that tears your world apart. Eddie Lynn earns his meager keep by scratching out tunes on a beat up upright in Harriet’s Hut, a dive bar in the seedy part of Philadelphia. He a quiet man in worn clothes who comes across as milquetoast. He’s tightly scribed his existence in a tiny circle of playing, lying in his room, and occasionally paying Clarice for a bit of sex. So divorced from the world is he, he’s not aware that a young, attractive waitress, Lena, has her eye on his. Then Turley shows up battered and a little disoriented and urges Eddie to help him. Eddie hasn’t laid eyes on Turley, or his other older brother Clifton, nor his parents, or their modest homestead in the dark woods of south Jersey in nearly a decade. Turley and Clifton have been involved in a caper that has gone seriously wrong. Two gunsels, described as real professionals, are after him and he needs to get away fast. Eddie doesn’t want any part of the action but fate dictates otherwise. The pros turn up at the bar and in the first of many violent outbursts in the book, Eddie enables Turley’s escape. Now, however, Eddie is a marked man who himself must avoid and eventually flee the gunmen. Unfortunately for Eddie, the affair awakens his senses, especially to Lena, who helps him, and to whom he begins to become attached. He sufferers internal conflict, in fact the core of the book is about his constant internal struggle to not love again, -- sorry, no more space allowed by Amazon

You may have seen the movies of these, original or remakes, but there is nothing like reading the tales themselves. Murder and adultery rule ☺️

No problems with the order.

I didn't read them as I gave them to my brother who loves the genre. HE liked it, though.

We have purchased 3 Library of America sets so far and really enjoy them.

Excelente edición, buen compendio y muy buen papel

Excellent read exceeded expectations Delivery slow but I can live with that.

I love this book set that comes with two books in a hard cover box to slide the books in and keep them together. Great for young adults.

This two volume selection of some of the best of American Crime has been published by the Library of America, an organisation that says that it "wishes to preserve our [America's] nation's literary heritage by publishing and keeping in print authoritative editions of America's best and most significant writing." They are doing a good job. These books use a lightweight paper but they are of good quality, well presented in a robust slip case. The novels included [12 of them] are by some of the best of American Crime writers including James M Cain — The Postman Always Rings Twice; Horace McCoy — They Shoot Horses, Don't They; Jim Thompson — The Killer Inside Me; Patricia Highsmith — The Talented Mr Ripley; and so on. Other reviews on Amazon.com give full details of all the novels included. Suffice to say that I am enjoying reading these excellent books and I think that at a price below £30 including delivery from America, they are good value.