Neo-Noir

Flawed characters, sexy dames, and an often violent backdrop characterized the noir writings of James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Patricia Highsmith, Jim Thompson, and others.  Bookmarks magazine (Jul/Aug 2010) recently highlighted some new names in noir:

Charlie Huston.  Caught Stealing
Washed-up baseball star Hank Thompson is an alcoholic bartender in a Manhattan dive.  Hank has resigned himself to a life of unfulfilled dreams.  Things change when a neighbor asks him to cat-sit.  Beaten nearly to death by Russian gangsters, Hank assumes his neighbor is hiding something important.  he’s right.  The first in a trilogy, followed by Six Bad Things and A Dangerous Man.

Victor Gischler.  Gun Monkeys
Charlie “The Hook” Swift heads south while considering a unique problem:  “I turned the Chrysler onto the Florida Turnpike with Rollo Kramer’s headless body in the trukn, and all the time I’m thinking I should’ve put some plastic down.”  Later, Charlie unwittingly kills four police officers in a strip club; his boss goes missing; he gets something some very bad men want; and all his friends start dying.

Jonathan Lethem.  Motherless Brooklyn
Lethem cemented his reputation with this fifth novel featuring Lionel Essrog, an orphaned Tourette’s sufferer who, along with three boyhood friends, is taken under the wing of small-time mobster Frank Minna, and finds himself at loose ends when his mentor won’t reveal his killer – even as he drawns his last breath.

Denise Mina. Field of Blood
Along with Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, Mina sets her atmospheric and character-driven novels in Scotland – but turns the gender tables. Mina’s first novels featured investigative reporter Maureen O’Donnell. This title introduces Patricia “Paddy” Meehan, a single mother and staunch Catholic in predominantly Protestant Glasgow, where, as a copygirl at the Daily News, she follows the trail of two young boys accused of murdering a toddler.