City Sleuths and Tough Guys

Fülszöveg

In the Introduction to this wonderfully entertaining collecdon of crime stories, David McCullough asserts that there are only two important divisions in mystery fiction: "hard-boiled versus soft, city versus country." "Fans of the country house mystery are in the game for the puzzle, perhaps for the play of manners," he goes on to say. "Fans of the city novel are in it for the grit, the danger, the sense that — however theatrical the situation may seem — they are in touch with what passes for reality." There is grit and reality aplenty in these stories, which take as their locale the urban landscape, ranging from Paris to Tokyo, from Chicago to Los Angeles and back to London. City Sleuths and Tough Guys traces the heritage of the hard-boiled mystery back to its roots with stories by Poe, Vidocq, and Lowndes. Here too are the great classic and contemporary names: Hammett, Chandler, Spillane, and Ross Macdonald, as well as some unexpected ones: the novelist Paul Theroux; Chester... Tovább

Fülszöveg

In the Introduction to this wonderfully entertaining collecdon of crime stories, David McCullough asserts that there are only two important divisions in mystery fiction: "hard-boiled versus soft, city versus country." "Fans of the country house mystery are in the game for the puzzle, perhaps for the play of manners," he goes on to say. "Fans of the city novel are in it for the grit, the danger, the sense that — however theatrical the situation may seem — they are in touch with what passes for reality." There is grit and reality aplenty in these stories, which take as their locale the urban landscape, ranging from Paris to Tokyo, from Chicago to Los Angeles and back to London. City Sleuths and Tough Guys traces the heritage of the hard-boiled mystery back to its roots with stories by Poe, Vidocq, and Lowndes. Here too are the great classic and contemporary names: Hammett, Chandler, Spillane, and Ross Macdonald, as well as some unexpected ones: the novelist Paul Theroux; Chester Himes, in his life as a writer a latecomer to the mystery field; Jim Thompson, recently rediscovered as a major figure; and New Yorker Carolyn Wheat. And this anthology also contains the Double Indemnity screenplay by Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder, unpublished for many years.
City Sleuths is a great literary feast for a wide-ranging audience, from the armchair traveler to the crime buff to the mystery fan. Vissza