The Noir Thriller [Paperback]

What is literary noir? How do British and American noir thrillers relate to their historical contexts? In considering such questions, this study ranges over hundreds of novels, analysing the politics and poetics of noir from the hard-boiled fiction of Hammett, Chandler and Cain to the exciting diversity of nineties thrillers, with sections on the tough investigators, gangsters and victims of the Depression years: the first-person killers, femmes fatales and black protagonists of mid-century; the game-players, voyeurs and consumers of contemporary thrillers and future noir.Dedication List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction PART I: 1920-45 Hard-boiled Investigators Big-shot Gangsters and Small-time Crooks Victims of Circumstance PART II: 1945-70 Fatal Men Fatal Women Strangers and Outcasts PART III: 1970-2000 Players, Voyeurs and Consumers Pasts and Futures Bibliography Index

'A good treatment of the fiction, its cultural relevance, cinematic parallels, and criticism; highly recommended for undergraduate and research collections supporting film and popular culture.'

J.R. Christopher, Choice, 2001

'The Noir Thriller marks another title in Palgrave's Crime Files series, whose editorial philosophy is to offer scholars, students and discerning readers a comprehensive set of guides to the world of crime and detective fiction , a philosophy Lee Horsley admirably meets with her readable, serious (though sometimes humorous) journey through noir streets and landscapes more varied than critics recognize.'

- Anthony Bukoski, Studies in the Novel, 2002

'In constructing her constantly original argument, Lee Horsley rams unstoppably through many hundreds of books and a good range of films; astonishingly, either by their positioning in her well-conceived categories or through more detailed analysis, she implies a fresh, carefully nuanced reading of each. This study of the twentieth-centurl3å