I have read that noir mysteries, or what is known as hardboiled mysteries was an American reaction to the cosy mysteries so well known and written in Britain. You can read about the american innovation here. I have read noir mysteries before, but this is the first time I have thought about what I was reading in relation to the mystery genre in general.
This weekend I finished the fourth book from my Summer Reading Challenge list. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett was quite a jump from my last book, which was an Agatha Christie mystery. Whereas cosy mysteries are all about solving a crime--usually the murder of someone (and you generally know who the suspects are and are given the clues to solve it yourself), hardboiled mysteries have murder, and other violent acts--but solving them doesn't necessarily seem to the be the main priority (at least in my very limited experience). As a matter of fact, I wasn't even sure I was going to find out who comitted the initial murders in the novel.
The character of Sam Spade appears only in The Maltese Falcon and several short stories by Hammett. Per wikipidia "Sam Spade combined several features of previous detectives, most notably his cold detachment, keen eye for detail, and unflinching determination to achieve his own justice. He is the man who has seen the wretched, the corrupt, the tawdry side of life but still retains his 'tarnished idealism'." Femme fatale, Brigid O'Shaughnessy hires Spade and his partner, Miles Archer, to find her younger sister who has run away from home with a man. Nothing is as it appears. Miles is killed along with the man he was meant to be tailing (the sister's boyfriend). What ensues is a race to find a black bird--the Maltese Falcon, complete with various shady characters who would easily shoot you in the back in order to retrieve the bird. There were times when I was reading the novel that I wondered if Spade was as corrupt as the criminal(s) he was trying to bring to justice.
I really liked this book. I liked the writing style, I liked the way the action moved along quickly, and while the character's morals were very ambiguous, I liked them as well (most of them anyway). Earlier this year I read The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain, and later I will be reading Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely. These three authors are considered the biggies when it comes to noir/hardboiled mysteries. I am interested in reading some of their successors as well eventually (particularly Cornell Woolrich, who wrote the short story that Alfred Hitchcock's film "Rear Window" was based on--one of my very favorite movies!). I have already added the film adaptation of The Maltese Falcon to my Netflix queue--it is considered a classic in its own right.
Next up: Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers. I have never read Sayers, but I have heard good things about her--and finally a female sleuth!