Jacques Tardi, famous comic book artist, made several comic books and declined prize by the french arts institute. In this comic book which is adaptation of obscure french crime writer we follow adventures of hitman. Nice clean artwork with sharp lines and interesting story.
Thrilling novel by respected author, it revolves around young man who wins at lottery. Not knowing what to do, and obsessed over some girl, he decides to kidnap her. Many issues arise during imprisonment. One thing that is weird is that sick boy didn't even rape her.
This novel inspired some psychopaths to commit serious crimes against humanity, but that is another story.
One of million new crime novels, this one is not too bad, and it reads quickly. Careless man got wrongly accused for murdering prostitute who gave him blowjob in his car. As he came back from prison, he decided to kidnap attorney girl who defended him back when crime happened and take his revenge.
You may remember movie Cape Fear with Robert de Niro and that lolita. Well, that is movie based on novel by this author. Wrote bunch of books this guy. But his main protagonist is bum Travis McGee who lives carefree life swimming and smoking until someone hires him to do job for him. In this particular novel he travels with some girl to an empty cabin in the woods only for her to be shot to death. After that Travis McGee begins to unravel mystery surrounding that town in which he was brought in by request of now dead girl.
Dan J. Marlowe is interesting figure in world of crime fiction. After decades of working odd jobs and writing for television, at his forties he decided to write his own novels. So he created his anti-hero, criminal by the name of Drake. He was initially filthy thug until he got caught by police and ended up with screwed face. After escape from prison he is now nobody, person with many names and lots of connections. He teamed up with his criminal girl Hazel and together they went from adventure to adventure. Later novels turned him into some kind of James Bond figure.
Interesting to say, Dan J. Marlowe contacted convicted bank robber and regularly wrote letters to him in order to enhance his body of work. He also suffered amnesia later on, so he forgot all things he wrote.
This particular novel is good of its kind, telling a story about kidnapping Hazel's friend by unknown thugs.
Edmund Crispin was quite popular writer of classic detective fiction during those strange times when bunch of idle-minded people didn't have anything to do but write about most disgusting way people could die. There is some interesting article about that phenomenon by some journalist.
Composer of music, Edmund Crispin wrote quite a bunch of these mysteries back in the day featuring oxford don Gervase Fen, amateur sleuth. In this particular novel he investigates death of Gloria, up and coming movie star. Of all traditional sleuths Gervase Fen is best, and Crispin prose is very well balanced with humor and suspense, which is best seen in his novel Moving Toyshop.
Interesting novel by poker enthusiast and ex-magician, it literary brings you to filthy world of casinos centered around Las Vegas and mastermind criminal who decides to rip casinos of all their money. As casino owner is worried he hires ex-cop familiar with gambling. Question is who is robber here.
Nonetheless, enjoyable modern crime novel.
Thomas Harris worked some time as a police reporter and journalist until he began to write big novels. His famous character Hannibal, psychiatrist who loves to kill his patients and eat them became legendary figure.
This novel is first and best in the series successfully combining horror and crime elements, although with not much literary style.
There is also good film adaptation by Michael Mann starring William Petersen, Tom Noonan and Brian Cox. Soundtrack is also very good.
This is good old school police procedural novel. Story revolves around unknown murderer who killed two women : one is a prostitute and another is decent student girl. However murderer cut of their heads and placed them in opposite way, to confuse police department when they found prostitute with severed head of decent student girl and decent student girl with head of a prostitute.
There is also interesting subplot about suicide of retired cop and her daughter who comes in contact with chief investigator Jarek.
All in all good crime novel.
Yo Asesino is very good comic book by spanish artist Antonio Altarriba. Interesting story about serial killer is very well drawn by excellent artist Keko. Much of the comic is unclear, and could be interpreted as murder as a work of art.
George V. Higgins was some douchebag of a lawyer but he wrote couple of good crime novels.
Cogan's Trade is one of them in which foolish young thug makes a mistake that costs him life taken by hired killer. Another one is Friends of Eddie Coyle which was filmed with Robert Michum.
However lousy serbian book companies translated only this novel.
Ross Macdonald was probably last of the classic hardboiled crime writers together with Hammett and Chandler. All of his novels are same and are revolving around search for some girl who escaped somewhere. That is very interesting if you know that his own daughter suffered through tragic incident.
Protagonist of his novels Lew Archer is good man, somewhat depressed but with a touch of brutality that helps him to solve mysteries.
This novel is good entrance into the world of weird Lew Archer.
Ross Macdonald had wife who was also crime fiction writer and her novels are good, but not so much as his.
Recently lousy serbian book publisher published one of MacDonald's novels. Little too late, but whatever.
Truman Capote was famous writer of the so called southern gothic genre. He was also homosexual and heavy drinker. But he wrote one good novel which isn't even a novel, but nonfiction book depicting murder of whole family by two criminals. Although it depicts real events, his literary genius managed to transform it into work of art, so it reads like a proper novel, unlike so many trash today that poses as true crime.
Torpedo is good gangster comic book created by Alex Toth. However he didn't like gruesome violence so he was replaced by Jordi Bernet, very good spanish artist. He and Enrique Sanchez Abuli continued story which may be best described as black humor gangster melodrama filled with sex and violence perfectly suited for teenagers.
Donald E. Westlake was famous crime writer who flourished during the 70's with his unapologetic crime novels full of tough guys. Usually they are centered on one thug who wants to take down criminal organization known as the 'The Outfit'. Such is the case in this novel, too.
These two argentinian artists made quite a bit of interesting crime comic books. High on LSD and in the spirit of the time, they embraced hippie culture.
One of their known work is Joe's Bar, comic book composed of several short stories all connected with each other. Jose Munoz artwork is incredibly artistic and in the same time sharp as good pencil.
Joseph Hansen began his career writing private eye detective novels with gay protagonist. It soon turned to whole set of novels with gay private detective, insurance investigator.
This is his first novel and is very interesting with stylish prose full of beautiful sentences.
Ed McBain is famous for his novels depicting day to day activities of police precinct 87th and officers who work there. This particular part of the series is quite good, focusing on criminal who chops girls after he befriended them and took their money.
McBain also wrote bunch of pornography novels, and is also famous as man who wrote screenplay for movie 'Birds' by Alfred Hitchcock. Good fellow, good writer.
This is classic piece of crime fiction which may be overlooked today. It is a haunting psychological thriller that delivers an unsettling an...
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