Book picks similar to
Noir City Annual 2017, No. 10 by Eddie Muller


z-author_eddie-muller
cineaste
film-noir_pulps_vintage-paperbacks
noir

The Fallen Sparrow


Dorothy B. Hughes - 1942
    He escapes Spain with the help of Louie Lepetino, a childhood friend who came with him to fight on behalf of the Republican cause. Back in the United States, Kit heads out West to recover from his ordeal, while Louie returns to a life of cafés and cocktail parties in New York. But Kit's convalescence is cut short when he learns Louie has taken a fatal tumble out of a window, and he journeys to New York to discover who gave his savior the final push.

Build My Gallows High


Geoffrey Homes - 1946
    Living in Nevada, bothered by nobody, he runs a little gas station, gets in a lot of fishing, and might even be falling for a local girl. Then, out of the blue, his past comes back to haunt him. Blackmailed into doing just one more job, he's forced to revisit the life he fled—in particular, the seductive Mumsie McGonigle. It's not long before Bailey realizes that a trap has been set for him. The novel, scripted by the author, went on in the hands of Jacques Tourneur to become the cinema's most celebrated work of "film noir," starring Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, and Jane Greer.The Film Ink series presents the novels that inspired the work of some of the most celebrated directors of our time. While each novel is first and foremost a classic in its own right, these books offer the dedicated cinephile a richer understanding of the most illustrious films of American and European cinema.

The Last Match (Hard Case Crime #25)


David Dodge - 2006
    Soon he's forced to flee the country with both the police and the heiress on his trail. Original.

A Panorama of American Film Noir: 1941-1953


Raymond Borde - 1955
    . . a seminal work of cinema description and analysis and therefore an essential purchase for most libraries." —From the Starred Review in Library JournalRaymond Borde (1920 - 2004), founder of the Cinémathèque de Toulouse, wrote extensively on film history.; among his short films is a study of the artist Pierre Molinier.Etienne Chaumeton was the film critic of the Toulouse newspaper La Dépêche until his death.

Brainquake


Samuel Fuller - 2014
    But that ended the day he saw a beautiful Mob wife become a Mob widow. Now Paul is going to break every one of the rules he’s lived by to protect the woman he loves—even if it means he might be left holding the bag..."Personal, hard-hitting, idiosyncratic...Everything was about storytelling, the great yarn."— Quentin Tarantino"One of the great movie directors of the 20th century...most certainly its greatest storyteller."— Wim Wenders In a career that spanned half a century, Samuel Fuller wrote and directed classic movies that inspired filmmakers as varied as Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, and Quentin Tarantino. He also wrote unforgettable novels such as the noir classic THE DARK PAGE—and this book, his last, which has never previously been published in the English language.

Honey in His Mouth


Lester Dent - 2009
    Original.

Fools' Gold


Dolores Hitchens - 1958
    Two delinquents and a girl encounter real trouble when professionals take over their planned robbery.The novel was adapted by Jean-Luc Godard for his film Bande à part (Band of Outsiders, 1964).

How Like an Angel


Margaret Millar - 1962
    That's how he's lost his job, car, clothes, and girlfriend; it's why he's hitchhiking from Reno to California. At The Tower, a back-country compound housing a religious cult, Quinn gambles again, when Sister Blessing asks him to locate one Patrick O'Gorman. It proves to be no easy task: O'Gorman's dead - and, Quinn wagers, not so accidentally as everyone insists.

Cut Me In


Hunt Collins - 1954
    But when I found him shot to death on the floor of his office, I had no choice. I had to track down the person responsible. And not just to lay Del to rest, either. Next to his body, the office safe was wide open, and a contract worth millions was missing...From the pen of MWA Grand Master Ed McBain comes this unforgettable story of warring agents and Hollywood dealmaking, murder and scandal—and passions igniting in the dark of night. First publication in nearly 60 years! Features a brand new cover painting by legendary illustrator Robert McGinnis Also featuring Now Die In It, a bonus McBain novelette from the pulps, starring private eye Matt Cordell from THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE Cover art by Robert McGinnis

Thieves Fall Out (Hard Case Crime)


Gore Vidal - 1953
    The lost pulp crime novel by great American novelist Gore Vidal! Hired to smuggle an ancient artefact out of Egypt, Pete Wells finds himself the target of killers and femme fatales - and just one step away from triggering a revolution that will set Cairo aflame!

More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts


James Naremore - 1998
    More Than Night discusses such pictures. It also shows that the central term is more complex & paradoxical than realized. Film noir refers both to an important cinematic legacy & to an idea projected onto the past. This wide-ranging cultural history offers an original approach to the subject, as well as new production information & commentary on scores of films, including Double Indemnity, The Third Man, & Out of the Past, & such neo-noirs as Chinatown, Pulp Fiction & Devil in a Blue Dress. Naremore discusses film noir as a term in criticism; as an expression of artistic modernism; as a symptom of Hollywood censorship & politics in the 40s; as a market strategy; as an evolving style; as a cinema about race & nationality & as an idea that circulates across all information technologies. This interdisciplinary book has valuable things to say not only about film & tv, but also about modern literature, the fine arts & popular culture in general. In a field where much of what's published is superficial & derivative, this work is certain to be received as a definitive treatment.

So Nude, So Dead


Ed McBain - 1952
    Now he was just an addict, scraping to get by, letting his hunger for drugs consume him. But a man’s life can always get worse - as Ray Stone discovers when he wakes up beside a beautiful nightclub singer only to find her dead... and 16 ounces of pure heroin missing. On the run from the law, desperate to prove his innocence and find a killer, Ray also faces another foe, merciless and unforgiving: his growing craving for a fix...

Blackmailer (Hard Case Crime #32)


George Axelrod - 1952
    From the Academy Award-Nominated Screenwriter of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE Comes a Breathtaking Story of Murder and Mischief...IT'S THE STORY of a big-game hunter, fisherman, fighter, visitor to Cuba, drunk, and Nobel Prize-winning author, recently deceased of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, whose final unpublished manuscript could fetch a mint...IT'S THE STORY of a short, balding man with a high-pitched voice and a vicious wit, whose cocktail parties are the talk of the town, especially when a beautiful woman dies at one of them...IT'S THE STORY of Hollywood's sexiest starlet, who manages to conceal things even when she's wearing nothing but a towel......and it's the story of Dick Sherman, intrepid New York publisher, on the trail of the literary find of the century-and the killer who will stop at nothing to keep it from being found.

Tussinland


Mike Monson - 2014
    His inertia is broken when he becomes the chief suspect in the murders of his soon-to-be ex-wife and her new lover. Set in the town of Modesto, deep in California’s Central Valley, Tussinland is about sex, drugs, addiction, smart phones, Facebook and the internet, digital cable, anti-government militias, reality TV, fundamentalist homophobic Christians, families, 12-step groups, pornography, marriage, death, disease, and love.

The Goon: Noir


Eric Powell - 2007
    Now a heapin' helping of the top names in comics and comedy put a new spin on their favorite characters! Among the distinguished creators featured in this, the very first Goon anthology, are comedians Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn (both of Comedy Central's Comedians of Comedy and Mr. Show), Reno: 911 co-creator Thomas Lennon, B.P.R.D. scribe John Arcudi, comics great Kevin Nowlan (Tomorrow Stories; Sandman; Superman), fan-favorite Humberto Ramos (Revelations; Spider-Man), Steve Niles, Ryan Sook, Mike Ploog, Bill Morrison, Arvid Nelson, Tony Moore, Hilary Barta, Roger Langridge, Scott Allie, and Todd Herman. Powell himself and frequent co-conspirators Tom Sniegoski and Mark Farmer also present the three-part "Peg Leg Full of Heaven," featuring the Little Unholy Bastards, and erstwhile publisher Dwight T. Albatross contributes a little somethin' for the ladies. See the Goon universe as never before in The Goon Noir! * The Goon series was a 2005 Eisner Award-winner (Best Humor Publication and Best Ongoing Series).