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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The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe, #1)
The Maltese Falcon
Farewell, My Lovely (Philip Marlowe, #2)
The Long Goodbye (Philip Marlowe, #6)
Red Harvest (The Continental Op #1)
The Lady in the Lake (Philip Marlowe, #4)
The High Window (Philip Marlowe, #3)
The Little Sister (Philip Marlowe, #5)
The Thin Man
L.A. Confidential (L.A. Quartet, #3)
The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Big Nowhere (L.A. Quartet, #2)
Killing Floor (Jack Reacher, #1)
Trouble Is My Business (Philip Marlowe, #8)
The Black Dahlia (L.A. Quartet, #1)

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Raymond Chandler
From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.
Raymond Chandler, The High Window

Raymond Chandler
She was quite a doll. She wore a white belted raincoat, no hat, a well-cherished head of platinum hair, booties to match the raincoat, a folding plastic umbrella, a pair of blue-gray eyes that looked at me as if I had said a dirty word. I helped her off with her raincoat. She smelled very nice. She had a pair of legs - so far as I could determine - that were not painful to look at. She wore night sheer stockings. I stared at them rather intently, especially when she crossed her legs and held out ...more
Raymond Chandler, Playback

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Hard Boiled Books Group A place to discuss and share Hard Boiled books. Hard-boiled books are a subgenre of crime ficti…more
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Hardboiled American Crime and Worldwide Noir Fiction Started somewhat as a reaction to the British cozy mystery of the Agatha Christie style (think M…more
195 members, last active 4 days ago