Forshaw - American Noir: the pocket essential guide to US crime fiction, film & TV

AMERICAN NOIR

Barry Forshaw is acknowledged as a leading expert on crime fiction and films from Britain and the European countries, but a further area of expertise is American crime fiction, film and TV, as demonstrated in such books as The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction and Detective. After the success of earlier entries in his Noir series Nordic Noir , Brit Noir and Euro Noir he now tackles the largest and, some might argue, most impressive body of crime fiction from a single country, the United States, to produce the perfect readers guide to modern American crime fiction. The word Noir is used in its loosest sense: every major living American writer is considered (including the giants Harlan Coben, Patricia Cornwell, James Lee Burke, James Ellroy and Sara Paretsky, as well as non-crime writers such as Stephen King who stray into the genre), often through a concentration on one or two key books.

Many exciting new talents are highlighted, and Barry Forshaws knowledge of and personal acquaintance with many of the writers grants valuable insights into this massively popular field.

But the crime genre is as much about films and TV as it is about books, and American Noir is a celebration of the former as well as the latter. US television crime drama in particular is enjoying a new golden age, and all of the important current series are covered here, as well as key recent films.

About the author

Barry Forshaws books include Brit Noir , Nordic Noir , Euro Noir , British Crime Film and Death in a Cold Climate: A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction . Other work: the Keating Award-winning British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia , The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction , and the first biography of Stieg Larsson. Non-crime books include Italian Cinema, British Gothic Cinema, Sex and Film and a study for the BFI of HG Wells and The War of the Worlds . He writes for various newspapers, edits Crime Time , and broadcasts for radio and TV both in the UK and abroad. He has been Vice Chair of the Crime Writers Association.

Praise for Barry Forshaw

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR ITALIAN CINEMA

Italian cinema is celebrated here with astute analysis in the sharply informative essays of Barry Forshaw John Pitt, New Classics

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR EURO NOIR

An informative, interesting, accessible and enjoyable guide as Forshaw guides us through the crime output of a dozen nations The Times

Entertaining, illuminating, and indispensable. This is the ultimate road map for anybody interested in European crime books, film, and TV Euro But Not Trash

An exhilarating tour of Europe viewed through its crime fiction Guardian

Exemplary tour of the European crime landscape supremely readable The Independent

This is a book for everyone and will help and expand your reading and viewing We Love This Book

Like all the best reference books, it made me want to read virtually every writer mentioned. And, on another note, I love the cover crimepieces.com

If I did want to read something so drastically new, I now know where I would begin. With this book Bookwitch

Barry Forshaw is the master of the essential guide Shots Mag

This enjoyable and authoritative guide provides an invaluable comprehensive resource for anyone wishing to learn more about European Noir, to anticipate the next big success and to explore new avenues of blood-curdling entertainment Good Book Guide

Fascinating and well researched refreshing and accessible The Herald

An entertaining guide by a real expert, with a lot of ideas for writers and film/TV to try Promoting Crime Fiction

a fabulous little book that is like a roadmap of Europe crime fiction Crime Squad

Fascinated by Scandinavian crime dramas? Go to this handy little guide News at Cinema Books

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR NORDIC NOIR

Entertaining and informative companion written by the person who probably knows more than anyone alive about the subject The Times

Highly accessible guide to this popular genre Daily Express

The perfect gift for the Scandinavian crime fiction lover in your life Crime Fiction Lover

A comprehensive work of reference Euro But Not Trash

Readers wanting to get into Scandinavian crime fiction should start with Forshaws pocket guide to the genre Financial Times

Essential (book) not only for lovers of Scandinavian crime fiction but also for anyone who appreciates and wants to expand their knowledge of the genre Shots Mag

If you feel drowned by the tsunami that is Nordic Noir but want to know who or what is the next big thing, get this book Evening Standard

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR BRIT NOIR

Unsurprisingly Barry Forshaws Brit Noir is a wonderful reference book that any self-respecting and serious connoisseur of crime fiction needs to have on their bookshelf Shots Magazine

Brit Noir is a book to dip into but also, as I did, to read from cover to cover. Ive always considered Forshaw to be an honest reviewer and the book very much reflects his personality. It made the book a stimulating and, at times, amusing read Crime Pieces

UK critic-author Barry Forshaw long ago established himself as an authority on English-translated Nordic mysteries, producing the guide Nordic Noir in 2013, which he followed up a year later with Euro Noir . Now comes Brit Noir: The Pocket Essential Guide to the Crime Fiction, Film & TV of the British Isles (Oldcastle/Pocket Essentials) The Rap Sheet

very glad indeed to have a copy of this short and snappy book on my shelves Do You Write Under Your Own Name?

A must-have for crime fans: for reminding yourself about old favourites, for finding new authors, and for that What shall we watch? moment Mystery People

Funny, analytical and always interesting The Catholic Herald

Foreword: Showdowns on Main Street

James Sallis

America is a nation founded at one and the same time on violence and high ideals. Both run in our blood. Is it any wonder were forever off kilter? A strange tribe, this, wishing to be left alone and apart in one breath, tasking itself to repair the world around it in the next, Henry David Thoreau and Clint Eastwood riding double.

The American detective novel developed in synch with our nations movement from a rural to urban society. By definition, it concerned itself with the dark corners, basements and back rooms of our national experience those poor stitches and loose seams that held the thing together. What you saw was never what you got. American life wasnt about apple pies, proper behaviour in the Hamptons and drinks at the club; it was about the repudiated, the pushed-aside, about men and women and communities on the run, never knowing which would happen first, if the sky would fall on them or the ground give way beneath their feet.

Coming as I did from a dual background in poetry and realist fiction, crime stories first attracted me for the power of their imagery and their underpinning. Mythopoetic, my professors back at university would have said. Tapping the subconscious: buckets lowered into a well of archetypes hardwired in us all. These stories were about the things that scare us most, as individuals and as a society, and at the same time about all the things, material and non, we believe we most want. Soon I began to understand, as well, that they are our truest urban fiction, that these stories speak of our cities and our civilisation, address what we have made of them and of ourselves, as do no others.