Book Recommendations

[Two Types]

As far as I know, Goodis was always more popular in France than in his homeland. When I last searched on Amazon, there were more French language books than English.

 

[Touchofevil]

Sadly, his e-reader available books on Amazon disappear about as quickly as they appear. I am fortunate to have acquired six or so before they were pulled.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Lucky Girl,

I second the notion of John D. MacDonald. The Travis McGees are more thriller-oriented than classic puzzle mystery, though, and are set in the '60s to the '80s.

If you want *real* puzzles, try the American Sherlock Holmes, Ellery Queen:
The Egyptian Cross Mystery (1932) and The Siamese Twin Mystery ('33; features a neat variation on the old "house party trapped by a blizzard" setup);
The Four of Hearts (1938 -- a mystery mixed with some screwball comedy, set in Hollywood);
The Murderer Is a Fox (a 1943 small-town setting, like Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt);
Cat of Many Tails (1949; an early example of the serial killer story, but not gory); and
The King Is Dead (1950s -- one of the great locked-room mysteries of all time). Ellery Queen, writer-detective, is the main character, though he doesn't narrate the stories.

Also try Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories, written and set from 1934 to 1974, with one of the great "Watson" narrators, sedentary detective Wolfe's legman, Archie Goodwin. The Rubber Band, Might As Well Be Dead, and Murder By the Book are three of Stout's best.

There's also John Dickson Carr, who specialized in the locked-room, "impossible" crime: Try The Three Coffins from 1933 or so.

 

[irisheyes]

If you're looking for a bit of history and a rare hoot or two, you migh try George MacDonald Fraser's. FLASHMAN series.

 

[Fading Fast]

I just read a Wall Street Journal review of "The Dawn of Technicolor" by James Layton and David Pierce which says the book describes everything from the early unsuccessful attempts to produce effective and cost-efficient colored filmed (cumbersome two strip film requiring two projectors or film that had fuzzy outlines and gave some viewers nausea or headaches) to the, ultimately successful, but still-slow-to-be-adopted Technicolor.

It seems right up some Lounger's alley and, my guess, Lizzie would enjoy it, but also know more about at least some aspects of it than the authors. Might or might not make my reading queue, but again, thought others here might really get into it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Oh yes, I got that as soon as it came out, and find it an absolutely indispensible guide to the films of the two-color era, both in general and as to what does and doesn't survive. A towering achievement in research, and well worth reading -- and studying.

 

[Fading Fast]

Oh yes, I got that as soon as it came out, and find it an absolutely indispensible guide to the films of the two-color era, both in general and as to what does and doesn't survive. A towering achievement in research, and well worth reading -- and studying.

You never cease to amaze - of course you've already read it. Based on a Lizzie seal of approval - I will be ordering it now.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've always been a fan of two-color Technicolor. I considered painting my living room in shades of salmon and green.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

I highly recommend Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther mysteries. Gunther is a Berlin private eye in the '30s who left the police force because of the Nazi takeover. At first he doesn't understand how bad they really are, just that they're the people he used to arrest who somehow seized power and fired all his respected superiors, replacing them with Party hacks. In the course of the novels Bernie encounters almost all the major figures of the time in Germany, from Nazi bigwigs to movie stars from the UFA studios. Start with "March Violets" and "The Pale Criminal." Some of the later books take place in "Third Man" postwar Vienna and South America, where many Nazis have fled. They're astonishing books.

 

[Harp]

Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

A highly instructive concentration camp memoir.

 

[jswindle2]

+1 for James Ellroy!

 

[PeterB]

Try Cornel Woolrich. For period flavour Hammet's Big Knockover series is good

 

[tropicalbob]

Patricia Highsmith's "Ripley" series; in fact, after reading "The Talented Mr. Ripley" I read just about everything she ever wrote. Highsmith's one writer who's been seriously under-rated.

 

[Fading Fast]

Patricia Highsmith's "Ripley" series; in fact, after reading "The Talented Mr. Ripley" I read just about everything she ever wrote. Highsmith's one writer who's been seriously under-rated.

I've read two of the Ripley series so far and "The Two Faces of January" and enjoyed all three (although, "TTFOJ" dragged in parts) and thought, like you, she's got something real going on for someone who, as an author, doesn't get a lot of attention today (although, Hollywood does like turning her books into films). I just saw "Carol" and now want to read the Highsmith novel it is based on "The Price of Salt."

 

[Harp]

I just saw "Carol" and now want to read the Highsmith novel it is based on "The Price of Salt."

The Price of Salt is chaste reading.
Also, Wilson's Highsmith bio is quite an excursion inside a writer's life.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I've read two of the Ripley series so far and "The Two Faces of January" and enjoyed all three (although, "TTFOJ" dragged in parts) and thought, like you, she's got something real going on for someone who, as an author, doesn't get a lot of attention today (although, Hollywood does like turning her books into films). I just saw "Carol" and now want to read the Highsmith novel it is based on "The Price of Salt."

Whenever I've tried a Highsmith novel, I want to like it . . . but afterward I have trouble remembering how the story goes. To this day I can't tell you how the two characters in Strangers on a Train resolved the deadly embrace situation they got themselves into, and I've read the book and seen the Hitchcock film twice. (I think.) Maybe it's her writing style.