November MysteryKIT- Noir/ Gumshoes

Welcome to the November MysteryKIT. This month’s theme is Noir/Gumshoe and is one of my favorite genres. Noir as defined by Merriam Webster is “crime fiction featuring hard boiled cynical characters and bleak sleazy settings". Gumshoe refers to a detective who pounds the bleak and sleazy streets wearing shoes with a soft quiet rubber sole. In my mind a true gumshoe is also outfitted with the standard trench coat and a fedora. Often a no-good double-crossing dame and/ or alcohol are involved.

Suggestions for novels featuring the typical gumshoe:

Raymond Chandler’s detective Philip Marlowe: The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, The Long Goodbye, The Lady in the Lake
Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer series
Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series
Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series
Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer series
Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon
John D. Macdonald’s Travis McGee series

Noir novels not necessarily featuring a detective:
Megan Abbott- Die A Little, Queenpin, Bury Me Deep, The Song is You
Cornell Woolrich- The Bride Wore Black, Rendezvous in Black
James M. Cain- Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice
David Goodis- Shoot the Piano Player, Dark Passage, Nightfall

There are many other books out there, have fun with it and don’t forget to update the wiki, as I often do!

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/MysteryKIT_2020#2020_MysteryKI

I might read one of the Akashic Noir anthologies for this unless I get inspired by something on the TBR shelves.

I recommend Laura by Vera Caspary, which includes a gumshoe trying to figure out who killed the title character.

I am having a hard time with this one, as I seldom read in this category of mysteries. Any ideas? Please help!

>4 LadyoftheLodge: Laura is good, dark but not terribly dark.

This challenge reminded of another book: Locked Rooms by Laurie R. King.

Holmes makes the acquaintance of a gumshoe to help solve a mystery. It's one of my favorites of the Russell/Holmes stories.

I am planning on reading The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich.

>4 LadyoftheLodge: You might try one of Sara Paretsky's novels featuring V.I. Warshawski. Indemnity only, Deadlock and Killing orders are the first three. If I was re-reading one of these, I think I'd pick Deadlock, where VI investigates her cousin Boom-Boom's death.

The other one I'd recommend is Faithful place by Tana French. This is a mystery, but it's also a story about the detective, Frank Mackey, and his relationships to his (mostly estranged) family of origin. Frank left home at age 19. He and his girlfriend planned to go to England, but when she stood him up the night they planned to go, he left and never went back. Many years later his sister Jacki calls him and tells him his girlfriend's suitcase has been found. Divorced & with a nine-year-old daughter he wants nowhere near his family, Frank is drawn back in to his old neighborhood.

ETA Touchstones don't seem to be working right now.

>7 markon: Thanks for reminding me that Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series would probably count for this KIT! Broken Harbor is next up for me, so that might be my choice.

>4 LadyoftheLodge: You might like Phantom Lady by Cornell Woolrich, Cheryl. When I reviewed it earlier this year, I said Woolrich created a "dark, desperate mood," but in retrospect I don't remember it that way. I still recommend it enthusiastically.

>4 LadyoftheLodge: I highly recommend Laura as noted in >3 fuzzi: and >5 fuzzi:. >7 markon:'s suggestion about V.I Warshawski is a good one as is Faithful Place. I would also recommend Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone detective series.

>10 lsh63: Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone is one of my favorite female private detectives.

Thanks to all for your recommendations. I do not like really dark mysteries. I am sure I have Locked Rooms on my shelf, and maybe Sue Grafton.

I am going on tags to help me choose. I also don't read a lot of this genre, so I'm not sure if these really "fit" or not, but these are the top ones I've come up with (available at my library):

The Silkworm / Robert Galbraith
The Promise / Robert Crais

I’m thinking of reading The Monkey’s Raincoat which I think may sort of count.

If anyone is interested, Double Indemnity is $1.99 on Amazon Kindle.

I would think The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J K Rowling) would work. I might read book #2 for this challenge.

I see a lot of good suggestions here, I decided to read The Galton Case, number 8 in the Lee Archer series, and something I found on my Kindle, The Cleanup, which will also fit for this challenge.

>18 lsh63: I thought The Galton Case was a wonderful book (as are most of the Archer books).

I'm tentatively going to read Bullet for a Star by Stuart Kaminsky. I have enjoyed this author's "Soviet" mysteries, and hopefully I'll like this one as well.

Love that cover! I have not read any by this author.

If anyone is interested in a 2021 MysteryKIT, check out the planning thread on the 2021 Category Challenges page.

>21 LadyoftheLodge: I discovered Kaminsky's Soviet mysteries years ago, love the characters.

Anyone interested in a MysteryKIT for 2021? https://www.librarything.com/topic/325803

I have a Stuart Kaminsky book on my shelves. I will be reading A Fatal Glass of Beer.

Although Shovel ready is set in the near future in a dystopian NYC, it is also very much a noir crime story.

If you are interested in voting for the 2021 CATS, here is the link to do that.
https://www.librarything.com/topic/325918

>26 MissWatson: And the sequel, Near enemy, is even darker.

I read selections from the short story collection Windy City Blues by Sara Paretsky.

Started reading Bullet for a Star by Stuart Kaminsky last night. So far I'm enjoying it; it's a little on the lighter side, not terribly dark or graphically violent.

Hi there! MysteryKIT planning is up for 2021. Some months still do not have hosts, so check it out if interested on the 2021 Category Challenge page.

Bullet for a Star by Stuart Kaminsky

I've enjoyed other works by this author but until picking up Bullet for a Star I'd not read any of his Toby Peters mysteries. It's a decent read, with lots of name-dropping of Hollywood stars of the 1930s and just the right amount of humor, in my opinion. And for the reader who prefers stories without graphic sex or violence, this almost makes the grade. I'll keep an eye out for additional books in this series.

I have also finished Red harvest which was a re-read after many years. We never learn the name of the first-person narrator, which is still odd.

I have completed my read of a noir classic with The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich.

I read Sue Grafton's Y Is for Yesterday, Kinsey Millhone's last outing.

>35 NinieB: - Still makes me sad that there won’t be another. Just happy that I own all of them and can reread them someday.

>37 NinieB: I'm sorry there won't be another too. Although I prefer the early Millhones, Grafton could always write a story I wanted to read.

>33 MissWatson: Isn't that one of the Continental Op books? As I remember, his name isn't mentioned in any of the books! Sort of like the narrator in Rebecca… I am thinking of rereading one of those for this KIT but time is pressing.

>38 leslie.98: Yes it is.

I didn't think I had an unread noir on my shelf and googled to find a list of titles. I was surprised and pleased to see The Cold, Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty on the list, it had been on my shelf for several years.
The first in the Detective Sean Duffy series, it takes place in and around Belfast in the 1980s during a period of sectarian violence. I liked it a lot and will read more from this author next year.

I read The Monkey's Raincoat which is the first in the Elvis Cole series. It was a bit dated - especially the way women were portrayed, but it was still sort of fun.

>41 LittleTaiko: When I read it and others in the series, I thought Crais was trying to evoke Chandler, Ross Macdonald, and so forth. The "dated" feeling might have been built in!

I read The Galton Case, which was very good.

>43 lsh63: Oh, Ross MacDonald! I have read all of his books that I own but there are a few Lew Archer books that I don't own such as The Blue Hammer. I'll keep that in mind though I had sort of decided that if I was going to read a library book for this KIT it would be Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury since that works for the AlphaKIT as well...

The Silkworm / Robert Galbraith
3 stars

Just before his newest book will be published, author Owen Quine goes missing – again. He’s done this before. His wife comes to PI Cormoran Strike to find him. She thinks he has gone to a writing retreat, but it’s much more sinister.

I do like the personal stories of Cormoran and his assistant Robin. There were parts of the mystery that didn’t hold my attention as much, though. I did have a bit of a hard time remembering who some of the characters (suspects) were. Overall, I’m rating this one ok, but I do think I’ll continue the series – for now, anyway.