Not much could drag Jim Booker out of a peaceful, if lonely, retirement and back to late nights, crime scenes, and chases. Jim Booker is done with detective work and would just like to enjoy a cup of coffee on a sunny day. But when an old friend shows up with a case about an old flame, Booker can’t say no. What starts as a missing persons case soon delivers more than he bargained for, and when Booker’s own past offers clues, it’s clear that no one else can solve this mystery. But there’s a catc...
From Sherlock Holmes to Sam Spade; Nick and Nora Charles to Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin; Harry Lime to Gilda, Madeleine Elster, and other femmes fatales—crime and crime solving in fiction and film captivate us. Why do we keep returning to Agatha Christie's ingenious puzzles and Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled murder mysteries? What do spy thrillers teach us, and what accounts for the renewed popularity of morally ambiguous noirs? In The Mysterious Romance of Murder, the poet and critic David Le...
"First published in 1931, the spellbinding novel Unclay glows with an unworldly light. Death has come to the small village of Dodder to deliver a parchment with the names of two local mortals and the fatal word unclay upon it. When he loses the precious sheet, he is at a loss, and also free of his errand. Hungry to taste the sweet fruits of human life, Mr. John Death, as he is now known, takes a holiday in Dorsetshire and rests from his reaping. The startlingly alive natural world basks in summe...
Mildred Pierce (Crime masterworks, #27) (Wisconsin/Warner Brothers Screenplays S.)
by James M. Cain
Joan Crawford forged a new and successful screen image in this powerful women's "noir" film; winning her an Academy Award for best actress. Albert J. LaValley's through and insightful guide to "Mildred Pierce" at once tells us much about the making of this complex film, the problems and process of transferring the story to the screen, the specific and important roles of the producer, director, and set designer, and how the film relates to broad trends within the industry. It is without a doubt t...