Hard Boiled

Hard-boiled crime fiction is a literary style, most commonly associated with detective stories, distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex. Derived from the romantic tradition which emphasized the emotions of apprehension, awe, horror and terror, hardboiled fiction deviates from that tradition in the detective's cynical attitude towards those emotions. The attitude is conveyed through the detectives inner monologue describing to the audience what he is doing and feeling.

The genre's typical protagonist is a detective, who witnesses daily the violence of organized crime tha
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Lawrence Block
She made love with the freshness of an impatient virgin and the ingenuity of a sex-scarred whore.
Lawrence Block, Grifter's Game

Raymond Chandler
He held my gun in his delicate, lovely hand. He held it pointed at my chest. 'I could teach you,' he said in his soft voice. 'But to what purpose? A dirty little man in a dirty little world. One spot of brightness on you and you would still be that. Is it not so?' He smiled, so beautifully. I swung at his smile with everything I had left. ...more
Raymond Chandler, Farewell My Lovely

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