Thrillers and Lists:

Noir favorites, who makes the cut and why

Part 1: Several online lists of top hard-boiled detective novels prompt a discussion of the logical and practical failures of the "best of" list.

Part 2: I can't help myself. My own top 10 favorite list -- which, naturally, is actually a "top 15" list.

Part 3: Feeble explanations of the thinking behind the list.

Part 4: A feminist follow-up and a promise I've not gotten around to filling.

Addenda: Hannibal falling -- arguably the most influential thriller of the past 15 years, and the wretched excess it spawned.

My Newsday review of Patrick Anderson's The Triumph of the Thriller

A new candidate for the top 15 list: My review of Richard Price's Lush Life

The London Telegraph publishes its own list of the 50 crime novelists you should read before you die, and book/daddy offers them some suggestions.

March 22, 2007 10:49 AM | Permalink

Categories:

THE REVIEWS:

Pat Barker, Frankenstein, Cass Sunstein on the internet, Samuel Johnson, Thrillers, Denis Johnson, Alan Furst, Caryl Phillips, Richard Flanagan, George Saunders, Michael Harvey, Larry McMurtry, Harry Potter and more ...

ESSAY:

Big D between the sheets -- Dallas in fiction

ESSAY:

Reviewing the state of reviewing

ESSAY:

9/11 as a novel: Why?

ESSAY:

How can critics say the things they do? And why does anyone pay attention? It's the issue of authority.

The disappearing book pages:

Papers are cutting book coverage for little reason

Thrillers and Lists:

Noir favorites, who makes the cut and why