On Top of the Stack

Once a decade I get an irresistible urge to revisit the hardboiled crime noir classics I was introduced to in high school but didn't appreciate at the time.

My latest binge included Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me, Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock, James Ellroy's LA Confidential, James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, and two books from Raymond Chandler.


Particularly with Ellroy, Hammett, and Chandler, their anti-hero heros are troubled, rebellious, and cynical - but can't ever escape from that ember of honor and hope smoldering deep inside. The authors paint a dark, bleak picture of the underbelly of society - usually LA. Why LA? Why not LA? Where the lights shine brightest the shadows cast deep and wide.

Their outlook was shocking when they wrote their novels - especially Thompson when he wrote from the killer's perspective - but is standard fare today. (Today, you might need to write with a positive buoyancy to shock people!)

I still read crime novels, but I'm not sure anyone has really bested the patron saints, Hammett and Chandler. That begs the question, who had the greatest character? Was it Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe?

I like both characters - but Marlowe is my favorite and I believe he was at his best in The Long Goodbye - which just edged The Lady in the Lake in my mind.

Marlowe befriends Terry Lennox - wealthy but haunted by his demons from serving in war and by the escapades of his nymphomaniac wife. No good deed goes unpunished and soon both the cops and the gangsters are after Marlowe when he begins to investigate the death of Lennox's wife after being told to back off. Telling Marlowe to back off is like pouring gasoline on a fire.

Rereading Chandler is a graphic reminder that California has always had problems - and a guilty pleasure from an era of tough guys, dames in distress, partnerships between the gangsters and dirty cops, and the discovery that even heros have flaws.


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Mark Gilroy is author of the critically acclaimed novel Cuts Like a Knife. A 30-year veteran of the publishing industry, he has served as publisher and executive vice president at several companies and currently runs a company that services retailers, publishers, ministries, and other organizations in the industry.