Sam Spade Appearing in one novel and a handful of short stories, Dashiell Hammett’s dream private eye—“he is what most of the detectives I worked with would liked to have been”—remains the prototype. As good as Hammett’s Continental Op stories are, their nameless narrator lacks the charisma and iconic appeal that Spade engenders, even without…
Raymond Chandler. The name carries so much weight in the mystery genre, it’s hard to believe anyone who says they’ve never read any of his works. But I hadn’t. Like much of popular culture, after a certain time, the details are everywhere—reviewed, rebooted, interpreted, and imitated. I knew Philip Marlowe through and through without having…
Every Wednesday, we here at Criminal Element will put together a list of Staff Picks of the books that published the day before—sharing the ones that we are looking forward to reading the most! This week, a new book in the Philip Marlowe canon from Lawrence Osborne combines with Linwood Barclay’s latest to highlight a thrilling week of…
Raymond Chandler’s novels featuring private investigator Philip Marlowe are perfectly ripe for film adaptation. The evocative atmosphere in those books, along with the memorable characters and suspense-rich plots, makes them ideal for transference to the big screen—particularly via the film noir style. Two of the better movies of that kind were created from Chandler’s stories…
It’s a long stretch to call Lady in the Lake—the dark suspense film from 1947 that Robert Montgomery directed and starred in—a Christmas movie. But, you know, I’m not much of a holiday films buff, and I wanted to write a seasonal post for this site, so a film noir title that happens to be…
Road trip – had to be a winner, right? As a kid growing up in the narrow streets of northern England, I knew America as surely as I knew the grey concrete of my own back yard. For years, I had a recurring dream; I was driving along a winding coast road – steep rocky…
The Coen Brother’s 1998 comedy The Big Lebowski has many cultural touchstones—the sixties, hippies, Vietnam, CCR, weed, Busby Berkley musicals—but the underlying structure of the movie goes back further to the days of 40s film noir. In a movie full of touches of genius (full disclosure: I’m a Lebowskiphile from way back), the initiating act…
In tribute to the late Lauren Bacall, we’re looking at the four classic films she made with husband and screen partner Humphrey Bogart between 1944 and 1948: To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, and Key Largo. Last week we looked at Howard Hawks’ To Have and Have Not. Today we’ll look…
I suspect most people think of science fiction and fantasy when they hear the name Ray Bradbury, who—along with Isaac Asimov, Phillip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke—represented the very best of modern thought-provoking and socially-conscious escapism. His Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, to name a few, are required…
The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson is the first modern western in the Walt Longmire series about a Wyoming sheriff. Registered commenters below will be entered for a chance to win an advanced reader's copy of Craig Johnson's upcoming collection of Walt Longmire short stories, Wait for Signs! The first novel in the enormously popular…
