Tag: noir

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

- Claire Leave a comment

Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen is a wintery noir set in an anonymous town, and follows Eileen Dunlop and her miserable existence. If you are familiar with Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, you will appreciate the tonal and characteristic similarities of Eileen. This author does not write likable characters, but rather ones that are deeply flawed, often disturbed, and always challenge the reader’s tolerance for abnormality.

It’s Christmas time in X-Ville, the anonymous city in which Eileen spends her dreary days, but that does little to lift the darkness shrouding her life. Eileen is stuck, and is only coaxed along by bottles of gin shared in the kitchen with her drunk, nasty father and the prospect of escaping X-Ville. Beyond her job as a secretary at the boy’s prison, she has and is nothing–except for the proud new owner of her father’s gun.

That is until the synthetically joyous Rebecca Saint John takes a counseling position at the prison. Rebecca is clean, polished, and poised–a stark difference from the quietly unsettled and perverted Eileen. Rebecca unearths something inside her: Attraction? Maybe. Infatuation? Undoubtedly. The events after Rebecca descends upon Eileen’s life are catastrophic, though eventually lead to Eileen’s permanent release from the psychological grip X-Ville has on her mind and body. 

Moshfegh is truly a literary master. Her ability to create a character wrought with flaws and failings and still make her readers feel a twinge of empathy for them is incredible. Eileen is more than just an eerie story: It’s a portrait of how poisonous loneliness can be and how it can warp our realities. A refreshingly strange, and sometimes uncomfortable read. I’m looking forward to reading more from Moshfegh.

Online Reading Challenge – December

- Ann Leave a comment

Hello Challenge Readers!

Here we are with the last Challenge of the year (what a year, right?) This month our inspiration film is the classic, The Maltese Falcon starring Humphrey Bogart. For me, the film is nearly incomprehensible – I still don’t understand the fuss over the statue – but it’s still a great film, with several famous character actors, an incredibly stylish black-and-white film noir feel and Bogart at his charismatic best. So what kind of books does this film inspire?

Of course, you can read books by Dashiell Hammett who wrote the book our film is based on as well as classics such as The Thin Man and The Red Harvest.  One of his contemporaries, Raymond Chandler, wrote several outstanding detective novels including The Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely. 

Others to consider include James Ellroy (The Black Dahlia, L.A. Confidential), Ross MacDonald (the Lew Archer series) and James Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce). Newer authors include Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train), Robert B Parker (the Spencer series), Lawrence Block (the Matthew Scudder series) and Mickey Spillane (the Mike Hammer series).

I am planning on reading The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett about married private detectives Nick and Nora Charles and their dog Asta. It’s supposed to have lots of fun. snappy dialogue and has inspired a radio show, a television series, movies and even a Broadway play.

What about you – what will you be reading in December? Let us know in the comments!

Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman

- Stephanie Leave a comment

I had not heard anything about this book before I checked it out on OverDrive, but the plot appealed to me right from the beginning as it’s a twisty thriller with a noir feel. Mysteries abound in Lippman’s newest book as a housewife decides to upend her entire life in order to make a new name for herself.

Lady in the Lake  by Laura Lippman is a psychological thriller mixed with elements of classic crime noir set in 1960s Baltimore. Madeline ‘Maddie’ Schwartz is a housewife, happy with her pampered easy life. Well, she was satisfied with that life up until this year when she decided to leave her eighteen year marriage to start over and live a passionate life that was more meaningful.

Starting a new life, Maddie wants to make a difference. After learning of a young girl’s disappearance, she decides to help police look for the girl. Using those interactions as a step-up, Maddie works her way onto the staff of the city’s newspaper, the Star. Trying to make a name for herself, Maddie is on the lookout for a story that will help her rise to fame. She finds the story of a missing woman whose body was found in the fountain of the park lake and decides to investigate.

A young African-American woman who enjoyed a good time, Cleo Sherwood disappeared one night. No one seems concerned with how the woman ended up there, so Maddie begins to dig into her disappearance. Cleo’s ghost is not happy with Maddie poking around into her life and death. She just wants to be left alone.

This book changes perspectives between many different characters as readers learn about the characters on the periphery of Maddie’s life. As she looks into Cleo’s murder, Maddie investigates a wide number of people, but fails to truly see what lies right in front of her. Her inability to see this leads to dangerous consequences for herself, those closest to her, and the people she comes into contact with on a daily basis.

If you have the chance, I highly recommend that you listen to the audiobook version of this book. Since this book jumps around to multiple points of view, the narrator is able to add different accents, dialogue, and authentic speech to each character. This definitely made the listen more than worthwhile and helped me keep the multitude of characters separate in my head.

Lippmann based the crimes that occur in this book on two real-life disappearances. If you’re interested in learning more, Lippman did an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered that covers her inspiration.

This book is available in the following formats:

Late Rain by Lynn Kostoff

- Ann 1 Comment

submitted by Sarah W

Ben Decovic is a former homicide detective who busted himself down to patrolman after the senseless death of his wife.

Corrine Tedros is a former nobody who wants money, respect and the immediate death of her husband’s rich uncle who is withholding both.

Croy Wendell is hired to do a crime. He doesn’t find out his clock is stopped until it’s far too late.

Jack Carson witnesses a perfectly arranged murder gone horribly wrong, but can’t unlock the memory – he’s got late stage Alzheimer’s.

This isn’t Carl Hiaasen’s Florida.

This is noir, done right.