Twenty Private Eye Novels from Hard Case Crime's First Twenty Years In 2024, feisty little Hard Case Crime , founded by Charles Ardai and Max Phillips back in 2004, celebrated its twentieth anniversary, but its mission statement remains the same, to bring you "the best in hard-boiled crime fiction, ranging from lost noir masterpieces … Continue reading Twenty-Twenty
Tag: My Back Pages
Down Some Other Mean Streets
Sam Wiebe's List of Out of Town (Private) Detective Novels In January 2024, our pal Sam Wiebe posted "The Detective Out of Town" on Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine's blog, Something is Going to Happen, to mark the publication of his short story “The Barguzin Sable” (featuring his Vancouver private eye Dave Wakeland) in their March/April … Continue reading Down Some Other Mean Streets
Where Did All Those T-Shirts Go?
I'm Just Saying... At the 2023 San Diego Bouchercon, I gave out over seventy T-shirts celebrating this site's 25th anniversary, suggesting that folks send me or post a selfie of them wearing them. Here are the results so far... If you scored one of these babies, don't be shy. Send me a selfie, and I'll … Continue reading Where Did All Those T-Shirts Go?
Banned!
The Naughty List The following hard-boiled and noir crime novels and/or authors(some featuring private eyes) have all been banned or restricted at one time or another. Not that they necessarily stopped anyone from reading them, but they tried. Of course, any raving peabrain with an axe to grind can challenge a book, but it takes … Continue reading Banned!
Chinese Eyes
Eyes of the Red Dragon Bob O'Hara by Gilbert Thomas (Hong Kong) Huo Sang by Cheng Xiaoqing Lao She & Judge Dee Ren Jie by by S.J. Rozan & John Shen Yen Nee Mei Wang by Diane Wei Liang (Beijing) Respectfully compiled by Kevin Burton Smith.
The Big Reads
The Longest Private Eye Books Back in the good old days (whenever the hell that was) private eye yarns rarely took over 200 pages to tell. They were tight and right, punchy and potent, lean and mean and they got the job done. Think of all those beloved paperbacks that could once legitimately be named … Continue reading The Big Reads
The Big Stretch
The Longest-Running Series, By Number of Novels(Not including short stories, collections or omnibus editions) According to all the evidence I could gather, if you’re counting by books, the Larry Kent series by "Larry Kent," a house name, is the longest-running P.I. series of all-time, while Le Manchot by Quebecois author Pierre Saurel (assuming he actually … Continue reading The Big Stretch
Stand-Alone Private Eye Novels
The November 1998 P.I. Poll The private eye novel has been a mainstay of the mystery genre forever, it seems. Think of all the classic private eye series, from Chandler's Philip Marlowe and Jonathan Latimer's Bill Crane to Robert B. Parker's Spenser or Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone. And yet, and yet, and yet... But what … Continue reading Stand-Alone Private Eye Novels
A Great and Unexpected Honour
The Thrilling Detective Web Site is in The Library of Congress! Who knew? When long-time friend of this site and hotshot librarian Randal S. Brandt said I was listed in the U.S. Library of Congress as a source, I wasn’t even quite sure what he meant. Randal works at The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, one … Continue reading A Great and Unexpected Honour
You say it’s your birthday?
100 Years of the Hard-Boiled American Private Eye (1922-2022) EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article, in slightly different form, first appeared in the Fall 2022 issue of Mystery Scene (#173), but it makes for a nifty intro to the upcoming panel at Bouchercon 2023 that I’ll be moderating, entitled “You Can’t Kill Me—Why the P.I. Won’t Die." Sadly, … Continue reading You say it’s your birthday?