Pulp Fiction discussion
Banter
>
What was your first intro to crime fiction?
RJ Ellory's 'A Quiet Belief in Angels' - not that long ago but I'm now hooked. (A brilliant book)
Gosh, I have no idea ... probably an Agatha Christie or Rex Stout book of my parents' when I was a kid, or maybe John Dickson Carr. They had tons of books by all of them (among other mystery writers--Dell Shannon, Ed McBain, etc), and I know I read at least a few by each of them. They also used to subscribe to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and I know I used to read them when I was a kid--especially at the cottage. I don't think I really fell for the genre until I picked up some Chandler and Hammett and Ross Macdonald books in my late teens, though.
I don't remember, probably something like Encyclopedia Brown the kid detective (if that counts), then I transitioned into Sherlock Holmes, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen and the like. I do remember that my first really hard edged novel was Lawrence Block's Eight Million Ways to Die when I was about 16-years-old. It changed my whole perspective on crime fiction, from there I went to Elmore Leonard, Joseph Wambaugh, more by Block and later Carl Hiaasen.
Lately I've started going backward to catch up on all the stuff I've missed like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
Man, I forgot about Encyclopedia Brown. He would have been my intro too, followed by the Hardy Boys. As an adult, I really started getting into crime books with Elmore Leonard and the Hard Case Crime Series.
First in the genre, not including stuff I read as part of coursework...probably Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen. From there it was Kinky Friedman, Robert Crais, James Lee Burke, Philip Depoy, Steve Brewer, Tony Dunbar, and Randy Wayne White. All these writers prompted me to look deeper into the genre and further into its past.
Mike wrote: "I don't remember, probably something like Encyclopedia Brown the kid detective (if that counts), then I transitioned into Sherlock Holmes, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen and the like...."Replace Rex Stout with Mickey Spillane & that fits me to a tee.
I guess I've always read crime novels. The Poirot tv series got me hooked I guess, read the books alongside more age appropriate mysteries, not sure of the name but they were like a modern English version of the Hardy books I think and stuff like the Point Crime series for kids. When I was 12 I got in to John Grisham, James Patterson and Sue Grafton but it was probably watching The Big Sleep for the first time that got me in to the more hardboiled and pulpy stuff.
Mike wrote: "I don't remember, probably something like Encyclopedia Brown the kid detective (if that counts), then I transitioned into Sherlock Holmes, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen and the like. I do..."
D'oh! Right! Encyclopedia Brown! I KNOW I read some of those in grade school, so they may well have been my first exposure to detective fiction. And Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators! Loved those books!
Dan wrote: "Man, I forgot about Encyclopedia Brown. He would have been my intro too, followed by the Hardy Boys. As an adult, I really started getting into crime books with Elmore Leonard and the Hard Case C..."Right, Hardy Boys, too! My grandparents had a bunch of them--really old editions, from when my dad and his brothers were kids in the thirties/forties, and I read those at her house when I was a kid, too!
Jonathan wrote: "Raymond Chandler's 'The Bronze Door'...a ghostly detective story that appeared in "Alfred Hitchcock's Supernatural Tales of Terror and Suspense", a book for young readers. I read it when I was ten ..."Was Daphne DuMaurier's "The Birds" also in that collection? I think a friend sent that to me when I was in Korea a few years ago.
Mod
I was never into Nancy Drew or any of the other youthful sleuths, but when I was about 8, I read a Big Little book (anyone old enough to remember them?) called "Tom and Jerry Meet Mr. Fingers" where the cat and mouse duo teamed up to defeat a supervillain.
I'm pretty sure that book made me what I am today.
*KOFF* The Hardy Boys, all of them. In elementary school. Agatha Christie beginning in junior high. Rex Stout and Dorothy L. Sayers in high school. Let's just say Pulp Fiction has broadened my horizons. *grin*
Jonathan wrote: "Mathew wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "Raymond Chandler's 'The Bronze Door'...a ghostly detective story that appeared in "Alfred Hitchcock's Supernatural Tales of Terror and Suspense", a book for young re..."I don't remember - I only read "The Birds." I'm pretty sure I left the book in Korea, too.
Melki wrote: "My dad was a huge crime fiction buff, and he made sure his books were readily available for my reading pleasure. I was reading Ed McBain, Donald E. Westlake and Joseph Wambaugh in my mid-teens.I..."
I think I had that Big Little book, but it's long gone. I do, however, still have several on a shelf, though all paperback rather than hardback, I think. My father has some very old ones, from the forties--things like Dick Tracy.
Yes, the Hardy Boys for me too and The Three Investigators. Then Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels starting around 8th grade. Also the old Alfred Hitchcock paperbacks.
Mod
- James Hadley Chase
- Peter Cheney
- Raymond Chandler
There was also some Ellery Queen, Georges Simenon, Agatha Cristie, Arthur Conan Doyle.
The Mad Scientists' Club was another early favorite of mine. There wasn't always a crime committed, but they solved a few.
It depends on what you mean , my intro that made me like crime as a genre i really enjoyed reading or just the first book i read ? First crime book i read was generic forgettable John Grisham thriller The Testament. The first crime book i really enjoyed and made me a fan is The Black Echo, book 1 in Bosch police series by Micahel Connelly.Not Doyle or other classic because my first crime book was read only 2006.
I read some of the 'Secret Seven' books as a child and later some Agatha Christie from my mothers collection. However, it was Spillane's I, the Jury that really got me hooked.
I guess watching Dan Marlowe write "The Name of the Game is Death," in my bedroom which my father had let him requisition. Of course, my Catholic school teacher mother wouldn't let me read any of Dan's writing. She thought it was risque, and it was, for its day. He did help me write a long baseball themed poem for school though. Oddly, I remember most of it by heart.
Jed Power (author, "The Boss of Hampton Beach," 1st in the Dan Marlowe crime series) http://www.darkjettypublishing.com
I remember being fascinated with Sherlock Holmes as a kid. I loved both the old films (with Basil Rathbone) and the stories and was so intrigued by them. Also, I'm not sure if this counts as crime fiction per se, but I remember reading some of John Grisham as a teenager so I kind of liked the whole justice system element to novels.
First real interest in crime started with Edgar Allan Poe, The Telltale Heart, Cask of Amontillado, Murders in the Rue Morgue, the Pit and the Pendulum. Then more general, Crime and Punishment, The Godfather, In Cold Blood. Very fascinated with the crimes, investigation, results, views from both sides.
First real series were probably Tony Hillerman's Jim Chee-Joe Leaphorn Indian reservation police, nice southwest settings, very different, and of course Sherlock Holmes and Watson.
I read Nancy Drew but thought of them as more adventure/mystery. She had her own car, wow!
Favorites today are Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Hammett's Continental Op. Also Los Angeles settings of James Elroy and Raymond Chandler. And soon will read Robert Crais, again for LA setting.
I picked up "A Murder Is Announced" by Agatha Christie during the summer of my 12th year. It was my first mystery and since then, I've never looked back. It's still my favorite genre.
I started reading the popular and overly published crime fiction by Grisham, Slaughter, Cornwell, James Patterson etc. but dont consider that my true introduction, in part due to the popular and mainstream nature of those books. A friend of mine introduced to me Charlie Huston's Joe Pitt casebooks via the second book in the series NO DOMINION. From that point forward I tracked down books by Gischler, Swierczysnki, noir by Huston (Hank Thompson books), and the Hardcase Crime books amongst others. The manifestation of all this good fiction completely changed my outlook to reading which is paramount to my reading habits to this day.
crime - of the darker variety is my genre of choice and one I cant see me deviating from anytime soon.
I picked up Tony Hillerman when I was living in the southwest, then tried out Ian Rankin, then Tana French. I was most just adding in a crime/mystery every once in a while or when someone loaned me one until I tried Chandler and Hammett, and it was all downhill after that.
The first dectective stories I remember reading are the books in the Alfred Hitchock and the Three Investigators series. As a kid, I was quite obsessed with the series and any time my elementary school library got a new one in, the librarian would let me know.
Dharmakirti wrote: "The first dectective stories I remember reading are the books in the Alfred Hitchock and the Three Investigators series. As a kid, I was quite obsessed with the series and any time my elementary s..."That's awesome. My partner used to read a series called Osborne Puzzle Books which encouraged the reader to be a detective, I reckon that's what got her started on Agatha Christie.
Bobbi wrote: "I picked up Tony Hillerman when I was living in the southwest, then tried out Ian Rankin, then Tana French. I was most just adding in a crime/mystery every once in a while or when someone loaned m..."Downhill is the perfect choice of word there. Soon you'll be a drunken mess at the bottom of some stairs outside a public toilet. If you didn't see my recommendation for Fierce Bitches yet, it is most definitely another level to fall down on the path to true noir debauchery.
Mike wrote: "I don't remember, probably something like Encyclopedia Brown the kid detective (if that counts), then I transitioned into Sherlock Holmes, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen and the like. I do..."
Ditto on the Chandler and Hammett. Good stuff.
First intro, Sherlock Holmes. Hooked good early on.
Tfitoby wrote: "Downhill is the perfect choice of word there. Soon you'll be a drunken mess at the bottom of some stairs outside a public toilet. If you didn't see my recommendation for Fierce Bitches yet, it is most definitely another level to fall down on the path to true noir debauchery. "Ironically, I've been there literally but not yet literarily (is that a word?). I did read that review, of course - all of your reviews are worth a read! Not sure I'm ready for that level yet.
The Famous Five and Secret Seven. Agatha Christie.
I loved the Three Investigators and that also got me into mysteries( Scooby Doo probably influenced me too). I have two boys, aged 6 and 8 now. My 8 yr old likes mysteries and Im trying to find him something similar to the Three Investigators. He loved Magic Tree House too
Bobbi wrote: "Tfitoby wrote: "Downhill is the perfect choice of word there. Soon you'll be a drunken mess at the bottom of some stairs outside a public toilet. If you didn't see my recommendation for Fierce Bitc..."You've literally been a drunken mess at the bottom of some stairs outside public toilets? Big confession, you must have some great material for your own noir.
Tfitoby wrote: "You've literally been a drunken mess at the bottom of some stairs outside public toilets? Big confession, you must have some great material for your own noir. "I must admit public toilets were not involved, but the places I've lived have not featured any public toilets. Perhaps I'm living in the wrong places to write noir.
First novel in the genre I read was probably "Ice" by Ed McBain, but it wasn't the one that got me hooked.
(what *that* one was I honestly can't remember, weirdly enough)
When I was a kid I had pretty much every Agatha Christie dropped in my lap and I couldn't read them fast enough. She really was gifted.
I think it was The Longest Second by Bill Ballinger. I think. Maybe.
Back in my comic book days, I really got into pulps, and of course, into The Shadow by Max Grant. But for crime fiction, my first wow-experience for this Michigan kid, was Loren D. Estleman.
Come to think of it, the one that got me hooked and really made me a serious fan of the genre has to be either "The Big Sleep" or "The Last Good Kiss".
Simon wrote: "Come to think of it, the one that got me hooked and really made me a serious fan of the genre has to be either "The Big Sleep" or "The Last Good Kiss"."Well if something is going to make someone a fan of hardboiled/noir/pulp crime it'd be one of those two. Big important works there.
Yeah. Crumley is, to use lazy pun, criminally underrated.
Very happy to see The Three Investigators get a shoutout here. I read Hardy Boys first, but loved T3I much more. I mean, the Hardys were rich and had speedboats and hot rods. I couldn't relate. But T3I had normal suburban problems and a junkyard clubhouse. I could dig that.
My first intro to crime literature? Had to be Edgar Allan Poe. I loved his stories.
Mystery, by Peter Straub. Literally a gateway author from the horror/fantasy I read as a teen, with his King collaboration... not that I don't still read both of those genres.
Jonathan wrote: "Darren wrote: "Mystery, by Peter Straub. Literally a gateway author from the horror/fantasy I read as a teen, with his King collaboration... not that I don't still read both of those genres."I lo..."
The Throat is great, as well. I prefer Tom to Tim, personally, but all the Blue Rose books are great.
When I was a kid, I liked mysteries. I read Cam Jansen, then Nancy Drew, then started reading the Goosebumps books and their spin-offs when they got popular (around 3rd grade). As an adult, I'd say Der Earl Biggers, Frederick Eberhard and Raymond Chandler were the big ones that caught my attention and made me really pay attention to the genre.
I got introduced by the character Sam Spade and "The Maltese Falcon".
When I was 11 I used to have to stay with my grandmother a lot.She was always reading these Mickey Spillane "Mike Hammer" novels. She'd make book covers out of grocery store bags in order to hide what she considered to be the "lurid" or "sexy" paperback covers for those Signet Mike Hammer pocketbooks.
I felt like those books must be pretty hot items to read. Piqued my prepubescent curiosity.
So I sneaked around behind the old girl's back and read I, THE JURY and MY GUN IS QUICK.
After that (besides reading most of my uncle's old 1930-40 editions of The Hardy Boys series) I devoured the old paperback Alfred Hitchcock and Twilight Zone anthologies where I discovered great authors like Gerald Kersh, Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson and others.
But what really **REALLY** sold me on Detective/Noir/Crime-Thrillers was when I picked up a paperback anthology of old pulp magazine stories (culled mostly from BLACK MASK, DIME DETECTIVE, and DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY) edited by Ron Goulart and entitled THE HARDBOILED DICKS.
That was my introduction to Norbert Davis, Frederick Nebel, Raoul Whitfield, Richard Sale, and the vastly underrated John K. Butler.
Countless times throughout the book -mostly in introductions to each of the various authors' short stories- Goulart would mention someone named "Raymond Chandler". I figured if -as Goulart seemed to indicate- most of the authors in the anthology were influenced by this guy Raymond Chandler that maybe I'd better check him out.
And so an obsession was born.
Pulp Fiction
Books mentioned in this topic
Dirty Harry (other topics)The Hunter (other topics)
Brass Keys to Murder (Stories from the Golden Age) (other topics)
Tiger by the Tail (other topics)
First Night of Summer (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Richard Stark (other topics)Landon Parham (other topics)
Agatha Christie (other topics)
Agatha Christie (other topics)
Rex Stout (other topics)
More...
Once hooked on Leonard, I then jumped quickly to Robert B. Parker,James Lee Burke, Andrew Vacchs, Gerald Petievich, Eugene Izzi..........too many to mention since then.
I'm still stuck in the genre 20 years later, not complaining though!