Hardboiled Crime Fiction
Book Reviews
-
In the joint at the corner I had coffee and eggs and looked at the papers. One of them was the tabloid I had telephoned the day before. When I picked it up, I felt a sudden, lunging fear. But there was no banner headline. I got brave and turned to the inside. (cf. Dewey, Read more
-
I found Big John and Doc on a small flagstone patio that opened off the kitchen. They were seated at a large glass topped, wrought iron table and there was a huge pot of coffee on a hot plate at Big John’s elbow. The view from the patio was of the tumbled mountain range north Read more
-
I was about to apologize for having disturbed him in the middle of the night, then decided it would be better to play it tough. Big John had said I had “manners.” A certain amount of manners would be okay. But guys just didn’t come real polite in the heavy rackets and courtesy could be Read more
-
“You want a cup of coffee?” “I wouldn’t mind.” Phoebe returned to the urns and drew a cup and brought it back. Purvy watched her broad hips going and coming under the white uniform, but he didn’t get the pleasure out of it that most fellows would have got. He stuck his nose into the Read more
-
In the kitchen, she found the note on the table and read it several times, as if it were in code and had to be deciphered. Finally, she left it where she had found it and went outside. She was gone a long rime. When she came back to the kitchen, she read the note Read more
-
“Feel better?” he asked. “Yes, thanks.” She watched in trance-like detachment as he worked at the kitchen shelf. He measured coffee into a percolator, added water and set it on the stove. He broke two eggs into a bowl and whipped them, added milk and seasoning, and got out an iron skillet and put some Read more
-
I didn’t get out of town the next day until ten o’clock. It was three hundred fifty miles by highway to Amity. In my old clunker, allowing time for a couple of stops, I did well to average forty miles an hour. Figure it for yourself. It was almost exactly eight and a half hours Read more
-
Throwback Thursdays” at ClimbingSky feature posts I wrote over 15 year period for various blogs. This was first posted on April 23, 2014 “(The) American private eye, immortalized by Hammett, refined by Chandler, brought to its zenith by Macdonald” — New York Times Book Review “… the Archer books, the finest series of detective novels ever Read more
-
I stopped at the corner drugstore and had a fifth cup of coffee. Marge, the blonde waitress, glanced sharply at me. “You look shaky, Mr. Caldwell,” she said. “Anybody’d think you was plannin’ to rob the bank.” It was a standard gag. I grinned. “Got a headache, I guess.” I left there, went across to Read more
-
I placed the gun down on the table, went to the stove and poured myself a cup of coffee, returned to the table and sat down. My eyes remained fixed on the gun because there was something I had to remember about it. I’m not a gun fancier; I’ve had too much experience with them. Read more
ClimbingSky 