Recommended reading - The Best American Noir Of The Century (2011):

The Best American Noir Of The Century (2011).

Edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0547577443

ISBN-13: 978-0547577449

Back cover description:

“Well worth its impressive weight in gold, it would be a crime not to have this seminal masterpiece in your collection.” – New York Journal of Books.

In his introduction to The Best American Noir of the Century, James Ellroy writes, “Noir is the most scrutinized offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction… It’s the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that goes bad.” Offering the best examples of literary sure things gone bad, this collection ensures that nowhere else can readers find a darker, more thorough distillation of American noir fiction.

James Ellroy and Otto Penzler mined the past century to find this treasure trove of thirty-nine stories, with selections from James M. Cain, Mickey Spillane, Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, Harlan Ellison, Jeffrey Deaver, Joyce Carol Oates, Dennis Lahane, and many more.

“Delightfully devilish . . . A strange trek through the years that includes stories from household names in the hard-boiled genre to lesser-known authors who nonetheless can hold their own with the legends.” – Associated Press.

James Ellroy is the author of the Underworld U.S.A. trilogy – American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood’s a Rover – and the L.A. Quartet novels, The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz. His most recent book is The Hillicker Curse, a memoir.

Otto Penzler is the founder of the Mysterious Bookshop and Mysterious Press, has won two Edgar Allan Poe Awards (most recently for The Lineup), and is series editor of The Best American Mystery Stories.

Contents:

Foreword by Otto Penzler; Introduction by James Ellroy; Spurs, by Tod Robbins; Pastorale, by James M. Cain; You'll always remember me, by Steve Fisher; Gun crazy, by MacKinlay Kantor; Nothing to worry about, by Day Keene; The homecoming, by Dorothy B. Hughes; Man in the dark, by Howard Browne; The lady says die!, by Mickey Spillane; Professional man, by David Goodis; The hunger, by Charles Beaumont; The gesture, by Gil Brewer; The last spin, by Evan Hunter; Forever after, by Jim Thompson; For the rest of her life, by Cornell Woolrich; The dripping, by David Morrell; Slowly, slowly in the wind, by Patricia Highsmith; Iris, by Stephen Greenleaf; A ticket out, by Brendan DuBois; Since I don't have you, by James Ellroy; Texas city, by James Lee Burke; Mefisto in onyx, by Harlan Ellison; Out there in the darkness, by Ed Gorman; Hot spings, by James Crumley; The weekender, by Jeffery Deaver; Faithless, by Joyce Carol Oates; Poachers, by Tom Franklin; Like a bone in the throat, by Lawrence Block; Crack, by James W. Hall; Running out of dog, by Dennis Lehane; The paperhanger, by William Gay; Midnight emissions, by F.X. Toole; When the women come out to dance, by Elmore Leonard; Controlled burn, by Scott Wolven; All through the house, by Christopher Coake; What she offered, by Thomas H. Cook; Her lord and master, by Andrew Klavan; Stab, by Chris Adrian; The hoarder, by Bradford Morrow; Missing the morning bus, by Lorenzo Carcaterra.