Who are the most interesting noir/detective writers?

Who are the most interesting noir/detective writers?

Pynchon doesn't count

Dashiell Hammett is pretty much classic, even tho he's formulaic. James Ellroy is probably my favorite.

ellroy

destined to become Veeky Forumscore

Rafael Bernal - The Mongol Conspiracy

Auster/Ellroy/Lehane

Michael Chabon wrote a pretty fun detective novel called "The Yiddish Policeman's Union". Chabon isn't a noir writer per se but he definitely pulled it off, and he's a great writer regardless.

Chandler is the formulaic one (he's great though), Hammett is pretty versatile in comparison.

Why do they look the same?

user I think you have facial blindness

she looks like a female Lovecraft

Um, no she doesn't

James M. Cain has never been surpassed.

"I loved her like a rabbit loved a rattlesnake."

>Auster

We throw around the word "postmodern" a lot but it describes Auster's style towards noir or more properly hardboiled detective fiction in the New York Trilogy. City of Glass and Ghosts follow characters who are trapped in stories and attempting to use the hardboiled device to find answers. So it's a more a parody of hardboiled fiction that gradually transforms into postmodern lit than a proper hardboiled novel.

You should read The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet (super fun to read) and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (as literary as the genre gets) to get an idea of the forms he's critquing.

George Pelecanos

lol those are literally the two most common noir novels ever written. I've read everything Dashiell Hammet has ever writen and a sizeable chunk of Chandler though I don't enjoy him as much

Jonathan Lethem's Gun, With Occasional Music and Motherless Brooklyn might be worth checking out. Robert Coover's Noir too.

I liked True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne

James Crumley had a few good ones, The Last Good Kiss and Dancing Bear

>fucking leaving out Doyle for this long

That's not what OP is looking for

Lehane is actually good? I thought he might be...

No love for Ross Macdonald?

The Burnt Orange Heresy by Charles Willeford was pretty interesting. Artsy for the genre.

Ironically he would have wanted to gas her