Good news on hardboiled crime

I’ve always dabbled in reading old, pulp noir detective books, but dove head-first into them the past couple years. What started as an obsession with Donald Westlake turned me toward Lawrence Block and now I’m into Robert B. Parker, Max Collins, John MacDonald and others. So much so that I spent the past year writing my own hardboiled detective novel, or three.

So it’s with glee that I report this story that I may be on the right side of the publishing trend for a change as the ol’ fedora and fists novels make a comeback.

As political corruption, violence and gender politics gain fresh relevance, pulp noir is attracting new voices and audiences, giving the gumshoe a 21st-century reboot

“Corruption and violence are hardly things of the past. Men in power taking advantage of the weak and getting away with murder – that’s the stuff of headlines today,” he says. “People turning to crime in desperation or out of frustration and anger. Frightened men on the run, or vengeful ones on the hunt – when did that ever go out of date?”

Check it out (even quote Mr. Block): Dames, detectives and dope: why we still love hardboiled crime