Noir Classics

[Robin Landseadel]

On Jul 9, 2009, at 6:43 AM, Ya Sam wrote:

> Hey, folks, which noir novels would you recommend as the best  
> representatives of the genre?

Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep" is the first thing that comes to  
mind. The character of Lew Basnight evokes Chandler's heir Ross  
Macdonald, whose gumshoe is named Lew Archer. As Macdonald's stories  
are set in Southern California and some are set in the sixties/ 
seventies that's a good place to start looking. Vineland and Against  
the Day have a lot of echos of Macdonald's work. "Sleeping Beauty"  
concerns itself with the big oil spill in Santa Barbara. The time and  
setting of that book has a good chance of being reflected in Inherent  
Vice.