The Noir Thriller Crime Files Series General Editor: Clive Bloom Since its invention in the nineteenth century, detective fiction has never been more popular. In novels, short stories, films, radio, television and now in computer games, private detec- tives and psychopaths, prim poisoners and overworked cops, tommy gun gangsters and cocaine criminals are the very stuff of modern imagination, and their creators one mainstay of popular consciousness. Crime Files is a ground-breaking series offering scholars, students and discerning readers a comprehensive set of guides to the world of crime and detective fiction. Every aspect of crime writing, detective fiction, gangster movie, true-crime exposé, police procedural and post-colonial investigation is explored through clear and informative texts offering comprehensive coverage and theoretical sophistication. Published titles include: Maurizio Ascari A COUNTER-HISTORY OF CRIME FICTION Supernatural, Gothic, Sensational Hans Bertens and Theo D’haen CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CRIME FICTION Anita Biressi CRIME, FEAR AND THE LAW IN TRUE CRIME STORIES Ed Christian (editor) THE POST-COLONIAL DETECTIVE Paul Cobley THE AMERICAN THRILLER Generic Innovation and Social Change in the 1970s Christiana Gregoriou DEVIANCE IN CONTEMPORARY CRIME FICTION Lee Horsley THE NOIR THRILLER Merja Makinen AGATHA CHRISTIE Investigating Femininity Fran Mason AMERICAN GANGSTER CINEMA From Little Caesar to Pulp Fiction Linden Peach MASQUERADE, CRIME AND FICTION Criminal Deceptions Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker FRENCH AND AMERICAN NOIR Dark Crossings Susan Rowland FROM AGATHA CHRISTIE TO RUTH RENDELL British Women Writers in Detective and Crime Fiction Adrian Schober POSSESSED CHILD NARRATIVES IN LITERATURE AND FILM Contrary States Heather Worthington THE RISE OF THE DETECTIVE IN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY POPULAR FICTION R. A. York AGATHA CHRISTIE Power and Illusion Crime Files Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–333–71471–3 (hardback) 978–0–333–93064–9 (paperback) (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England The Noir Thriller Lee Horsley Reader in Literature and Culture Department of English & Creative Writing Lancaster University, UK © Lee Horsley 2001, 2009 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in hardback 2001 First published in paperback 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-0-230-21886-4 ISBN 978-0-230-28075-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-28075-5 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Horsley, Lee, 1944– The noir thriller / Lee Horsley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 978–0–230–21886–4 (pbk) 1. Detective and mystery stories, American—History and criticism. 2. Detective and mystery stories, English—History and criticism. 3. American fiction—20th century—History and criticism. 4. English fiction—20th century—History and criticism. 5. Literature and society– –United States—History—20th century. 6. Suspense fiction—History and criticism. 7. Crime in literature. I. Title. PS374.D4 H65 2000 813'.087209—dc21 00–040453 10987654321 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 In Memory of Hilda Drewery, 1919–1998 This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 Part I: 1920–45 15 1 Hard-boiled Investigators 23 From pulp heroes to Poisonville 25 Beautiful manners and flawless English 35 ‘The hardest of the hard-boilers’ 40 2 Big-shot Gangsters and Small-time Crooks 45 Gutter Macbeths 50 Also-rans, has-beens and other losers 54 Britain’s armless bandits 61 3 Victims of Circumstance 67 American dreams 70 European nightmares 79 Part II: 1945–70 89 4 Fatal Men 103 Revenge-seekers 106 Money-grubbers and social climbers 112 Psychopaths 119 5 Fatal Women 125 Tramps and tomboys 131 Seeing double 137 Seeing through men 145 6 Strangers and Outcasts 153 Displaced persons 156 Civil wrongs 168 Rage in Harlem 174 vii viii Contents Part III: 1970–2009 183 7 Players, Voyeurs and Consumers 197 Players and their games 201 The eyes of the beholders 208 All-consuming quests 217 8 Pasts and Futures 228 A hell of a city 232 The mean streets of the Metaverse 238 Invitations to the underworld 246 9 Literary Noir in the Twenty-First Century 251 ‘History is this cycle of arrogance and fall...’ 252 ‘A little Eastwood going on in there...’ 256 ‘She’s been around forever’ 263 ‘No dawns ever did break...’ 268 Notes 272 Bibliography 298 Index 317 List of Illustrations Figure 1 Martin Rowson, The Waste Land (1990) 2 Figure 2 The hard-boiled investigator: Pocket Books 1943 edition of Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key 26 Figure 3 The noir victim: Signet Books 1951 edition of Horace McCoy’s I Should Have Stayed Home (artist: Ray Pease) 68 Figure 4 Ben Sarto, Miss Otis Blows Town (1953) 126 Figure 5 David Goodis, The Blonde on the Street Corner (1954) 127 Figure 6 Charles Williams, The Stain of Suspicion (Pan, 1959) 128 Figure 7 Hal Ellson, Tomboy (Bantam, 1957) 129 Figure 8 Helen Nielsen’s Detour to Death (Dell, 1953) 163 Figure 9 James Avati’s cover illustration for the 1949 Signet edition of Chester Himes’ If He Hollers Let Him Go 177 ix Acknowledgements My aim in this study has been to include a range of the literary noir published in America and Britain between 1920 and the present. I wanted to cast my net as widely as possible, and this necessitated drawing in a large number of novels that are not currently in print. In my search for old editions, I have been given much help by a small group of British dealers in second-hand and vintage paperbacks, par- ticularly Maurice Flanagan and David Hyman. I also feel a general sense of indebtedness to Maxim Jakubowski for his republication of noir clas- sics and his encouragement of new British crime-writing. During the early stages of research and writing I was given extremely useful suggestions by Clive Bloom, John Morris, Steve Holland, Paul Duncan, Tess Cosslett and Jonathan Munby. I benefited as well from discussions with the enthusiastic graduate students who have taken ‘The Noir Thriller’ as a Department of English MA module, especially with those working on related dissertations. I am indebted to the Lancaster University Committee for Research and to the English Department for their generous contribution towards the cost of a research trip to the United States in 1998, and to Lancaster University for giving me sabbatical leave to write this book. I also want to thank the staff of the British Library and of the libraries I visited during my American research trip: Harvard’s Widener Library, Boston University’s Mugar Library, the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library all provided me with essential material. Most of all, I want to express my thanks to the members of my family, without whose encouragement this book could not have been written. Tony Horsley was a patient and percipient reader of the manuscript, as was my daughter, Kate Horsley, who has also collaborated with me in writing related articles. Both gave me a huge amount of help and advice. The entire family greatly added to my pleasure in the project by sharing my enjoyment of neo-noir films, and my sons, Daniel and Samuel, were a constant source of useful suggestions and interesting questions. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to their grandmother, Hilda Drewery, to whom this book is dedicated. Until her death in 1998 she was a mainstay of the household and her unstinting support and love sustained us all. 12 April 2000 x Acknowledgements xi In my work on this expanded edition, I am particularly indebted to a number of contemporary writers. Since The Noir Thriller was first pub- lished, the Lancaster University Department of English has joined with Creative Writing, and I especially want to thank Graham Mort and George Green for involving me, through joint postgraduate supervi- sions, with such a range of creative writers, several of whom have taken genre fiction as a starting point. Amongst contemporary crime writers, my largest debt is to Allan Guthrie, who has been a friend and collab- orator since 2003.