Ten Essential Noir Novels

I was in my early 20s and living in Reno when I went to the library and saw it on the new release shelf:  by . It was the cover that made me pick it up and check it out. I read it that night and said to myself, “Goddamn, I want to write like that.” It was six months later that I went to a bookstore and saw a life-sized, black-and-white cardboard cutout of a crazed convict pointing a gun. On his chest were pockets containing novels with the same sort of black-and-white cover photos. The publisher was Black Lizard and the novels had names like , , , , , . I’d never seen books like those before. They were short, under 200 pages, and dangerous looking. I’d just been paid and I had money so I bought four of them without knowing anything