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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James Crumley
...the sun rose each morning to stare into my face with the blank but touching gaze of a lovely retarded child.
James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss

Raymond Chandler
A hard-boiled redhead sang a hard-boiled song in a voice that could have been used to split firewood (Guns at Cyrano's) ...more
Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder

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