Tart Noir is a branch of crime fiction that is characterized by strong, independent female detectives with an amount of sexuality often involved. The books in the genre also occasionally feature a murderer protagonist and are sometimes presented in a first person point of view. [1] Tart Noir was labeled and effectively created as a genre by four writers during the 1990s, Sparkle Hayter, Lauren Henderson, Katy Munger, and Stella Duffy. Some of these writers have since collaborated on book signings and other events in order to promote the genre, along with creating a website called Tartcity.com. [2]
The storylines and characters described in a Tart Noir novel includes the necessity of a heroine who is "tough enough to take on criminals and cops" and yet still have the personality of being able to be "tender enough to love a man with rough edges". [3] The requirements were described by Stella Duffy as the novel needing to be "maybe comedic, maybe violent, maybe sexual, definitely new-woman, neo-feminist, strong, smart and sharp." [4]
The four writers first met at one of the many writers conferences that they attended. It was during one of these times in 1999 that they "realized they were writing the same sort of thing" and discussed doing events together under the banner Slut Noir. Sparkle Hayter changed the named to Tart Noir and decided to create a website in lieu of doing events. When asked why they had decided on the name of Tart Noir for the genre, Hayter explained that slut was a "powerless word" and that "'tart' sounded like a lot more fun". [2] After bringing other women into the webzine, including Jennifer Blue, Tony Fennelly, Max Adams and J.J. Buch, Hayter edited the launch issue, then moved on to other projects. Munger took over editing, maintenance and expansion of the website.
Since its beginnings, the genre has grown to include more than twenty other writers who have self-styled themselves as writers of Tart Noir. [5] This is shown by the fact that exactly twenty Tart Noir writers have come together to write an anthology of original stories in the genre, itself titled Tart Noir. The anthology was commissioned in 2002 by Stella Duffy and Lauren Henderson. [4] [6] One of those writers, Vicki Hendricks, describes herself as the first Tart Noir writer in the United States. [7]
Tart Noir was featured prominently in 2001 by Lauren Henderson at the "SheKilda" convention, which was the "first-ever women's crime convention". [8]
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, Kogoro Akechi, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades.
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. Most crime drama focuses on criminal investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre.
The "locked-room" or "impossible crime" mystery is a type of crime seen in crime and detective fiction. The crime in question, typically murder, is committed in circumstances under which it appeared impossible for the perpetrator to enter the crime scene, commit the crime, and leave undetected. The crime in question typically involves a situation whereby an intruder could not have left; for example the original literal "locked room": a murder victim found in a windowless room locked from the inside at the time of discovery. Following other conventions of classic detective fiction, the reader is normally presented with the puzzle and all of the clues, and is encouraged to solve the mystery before the solution is revealed in a dramatic climax.
Hardboiled fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction. The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence of organized crime that flourished during Prohibition (1920–1933) and its aftermath, while dealing with a legal system that has become as corrupt as the organized crime itself. Rendered cynical by this cycle of violence, the detectives of hardboiled fiction are often antiheroes. Notable hardboiled detectives include Dick Tracy, Philip Marlowe, Nick Charles, Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Lew Archer, Slam Bradley, and The Continental Op.
Noir fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction.
Otto Penzler is an American editor of mystery fiction, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.
Joel Townsley Rogers was an American writer who wrote science fiction, air-adventure, and mystery stories and a handful of mystery novels. He is best known for his murder mystery The Red Right Hand, which is considered a cult classic of the genre and won the French literary award Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in 1951.
Stella Frances Silas Duffy is a London-born writer and theatremaker. Born in London, she spent her childhood in New Zealand before returning to the UK.
Kenneth Martin Edwards is a British crime novelist, whose work has won multiple awards including lifetime achievement awards for his fiction, non-fiction, short fiction, and scholarship in the UK and the United States. In addition to translations into various European languages, his books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese. As a crime fiction critic and historian, and also in his career as a solicitor, he has written non-fiction books and many articles. He is the current President of the Detection Club and in 2020 was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in British crime writing, in recognition of the "sustained excellence" of his work in the genre.
Adrian McKinty is a Northern Irish writer of crime and mystery novels and young adult fiction, best known for his 2020 award-winning thriller, The Chain, and the Sean Duffy novels set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. He is a winner of the Edgar Award, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, the Macavity Award, the Ned Kelly Award, the Barry Award, the Audie Award, the Anthony Award and the International Thriller Writers Award. He has been shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.
Sparkle Hayter is a Canadian journalist and author. In 1995 she received the Arthur Ellis Award of the Crime Writers of Canada for her novel What's A Girl Gotta Do? (1995). In 1998, she became the first winner of the UK's Sherlock award for "Best Comic Detective." Hayter has also performed as a stand-up comedian.
Katy Munger, who has also written under the names Gallagher Gray and Chaz McGee, is an American mystery author known for writing the Casey Jones,Hubbert & Lil, and Dead Detective series. She is a former reviewer for The Washington Post.
Nordic noir, also known as Scandinavian noir, is a genre of crime fiction usually written from a police point of view and set in Scandinavia or the Nordic countries. Nordic noir often employs plain language, avoiding metaphor, and is typically set in bleak landscapes. This results in a dark and morally complex mood, in which a tension is depicted between the apparently still and bland social surface and the patterns of murder, misogyny, rape, and racism the genre depicts as lying underneath. It contrasts with the whodunit style such as the English country house murder mystery.
Megan Abbott is an American author of crime fiction and of non-fiction analyses of hardboiled crime fiction. Her novels and short stories have drawn from and re-worked classic subgenres of crime writing from a female perspective. She is also an American writer and producer of television.
Bouchercon is an annual convention of creators and devotees of mystery and detective fiction. It is named in honour of writer, reviewer, and editor Anthony Boucher; also the inspiration for the Anthony Awards, which have been issued at the convention since 1986. This page details Bouchercon XXXIII and the 17th Anthony Awards ceremony.
Lauren Milne Henderson is an English freelance journalist and novelist who also writes as Rebecca Chance. Her books include thrillers/bonkbusters/chick lit, mysteries, Tart Noir, romantic comedies, and young adult. Between 1996 and 2011 Henderson published 17 books under her own name. She began writing as Rebecca Chance in 2009, and now writes novels exclusively as Rebecca Chance.
Vicki Due Hendricks is an American author of crime fiction, erotica, and a variety of short stories.
Craig McDonald is an American novelist, journalist, communications specialist, and the author of the Hector Lassiter series, the Zana O'Savin Series, the novel El Gavilan, and two collections of interviews with fiction writers, Art in the Blood (2006) and Rogue Males (2009). He also edited the anthology, Borderland Noir (2015).
Gary Phillips is an American writer, editor, and community activist whose 1994 novel Violent Spring is considered a classic work of crime fiction and one of the essential crime novels about Los Angeles. His more than two dozen books range from hard-boiled mysteries such as the acclaimed Ivan Monk series to graphic novels including Angeltown and anthologies like The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir. Phillips has also served as a story editor and writer on the television show Snowfall.
