Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black Dahlia (1987) and L.A. Confidential (1990).
Walter Ellis Mosley is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. They are, perhaps, his most popular works. In 2020, Mosley received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, making him the first Black man to receive the honor.
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.
The Best American Mystery and Suspense is an annual anthology of North American mystery and thriller stories. Prior to 2021, its title was The Best American Mystery Stories and it was published by Houghton Mifflin through the year 2017. It has been part of The Best American Series since 1997, it is published by Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Stephen Gould Fisher was an American author best known for his pulp stories, novels and screenplays. He is one of the few pulp authors to go on to enjoy success as both an author in "slick" magazines, such as the Saturday Evening Post, and as an in-demand writer in Hollywood.
Thomas Gerald Franklin is an American writer originally from Dickinson, Alabama, United States.
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).
Gunard Hjertstedt, better known by pen name Day Keene, was an American novelist, short story writer and radio and television scriptwriter. Keene wrote over 50 novels and was the head writer for radio soap operas Little Orphan Annie and Kitty Keene, Inc. Several of his novels were adapted into movies, including Joy House and Chautauqua, released as The Trouble with Girls.
They Never Say When is a 1944 thriller novel by the British writer Peter Cheyney. It is the sixth in his series of novels featuring the London private detective Slim Callaghan, a British version of the increasingly popular hardboiled American detectives.
The Private Wound is a 1968 mystery thriller novel by Cecil Day-Lewis, written under the pen name of Nicholas Blake. It was one of four stand-alone novels he wrote alongside the Nigel Strangeways detective novels. The title is taken from a line in William Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona. It was a runner-up for the Gold Dagger Award of the British Crime Writers' Association.
The Cold Dark Night is a 1957 spy thriller novel by the British writer Sarah Gainham. Her second novel, it is set at the height of the Cold War when the 1954 Berlin Conference saw the Big Four foreign ministers arrive in the divided city. Gainham had worked in Berlin as a journalist at the time of the Conference.
A Place in the Country is a 1969 novel by the British writer Sarah Gainham. It was the second in her Vienna trilogy following on from the popular first novel Night Falls on the City.
Private Worlds is a 1971 novel by the British writer Sarah Gainham. It was the third in her Vienna trilogy following the popular first novel Night Falls on the City.
Murder Has No Tongue is a 1937 mystery detective novel by Anthony Gilbert, the pen name of British writer Lucy Beatrice Malleson. It is the third in her long-running series featuring the unscrupulous London solicitor and detective Arthur Crook.
Vegetable Duck is a 1944 detective novel by John Rhode, the pen name of the British writer Cecil Street. It is the fortieth in his long-running series of novels featuring Lancelot Priestley, a Golden Age armchair detective. The title refers to a dish including a Marrow stuffed with minced beef, which features in the plot. It has been described as "one of the oddest titles for a detective novel in the genre". Although written during wartime, the setting was post-war. It was published in America by Dodd Mead under the alternative title Too Many Suspects.
The Exploits of Fidelity Dove is a mystery novel by William Edward Vickers. It was first published in 1924 under the pen name David Durham and then again in 1935 under Vicker's more popular pen name Roy Vickers. It is considered one of the rarest mystery books of the twentieth century.
The Unsuspected is a mystery thriller novel by the American writer Charlotte Armstrong. It was originally serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1945 before being published in book form by Coward-McCann the following year. Armstrong's previous three books had been a trilogy featuring the amateur detective MacDougal Duff, but she abandoned the character on the advice of her agent and produced a stand-alone suspense novel.
The So Blue Marble is a 1940 mystery thriller novel by the American writer Dorothy B. Hughes. It was her first published novel. The manuscript was trimmed by 25,000 words at the demand of the book's editor, establishing the author's terse, hard-boiled style. It received excellent reviews. It was followed by a sequel The Bamboo Blonde in 1941.
Dread Journey is a 1945 mystery thriller novel by the American writer Dorothy B. Hughes, noted for her hardboiled style. It was first published by Duell, Sloan and Pearce.
