Hard Case Crime (22 books in series)

No House Limit (1958)
language
English
author
3.47 of 5 Votes: 4
review 1: "No House Limit" is a very unusual and unique novel by one of the most undersung masters of noir, Steve Fisher. It is structured somewhat like a screenplay--perhaps not surprising, since Fisher spent decades in Hollywood--and concerns the attempts of the unnamed syndicate in Veg...
Baby Moll (1958)
language
English
author
3.53 of 5 Votes: 4
review 1: Peter Mallory thought he'd left his life of crime behind six years ago but a week before his wedding, he's pulled back in. Mallory has to figure out who's trying to kill his old boss in order to keep his fiancee from finding out about his criminal past. But what do the killings...
The Secret Lives of Married Women (2013)
language
English
author
3.36 of 5 Votes: 1
review 1: I just loved this book. Very nearly Writer and the Critic worthy, but there’s so much else I want to recommend I’m not sure if it’s going to make the cut. Maybe.The Secret Lives of Married Women is essentially two novellas stitched together, telling the stories of two married wom...
Corpse Wore Pasties (2014)
language
English
author
3.56 of 5 Votes: 5
review 1: Male burlesque performer becomes the main suspect when a female performer dies on stage. He has to go clear his name. In an amateurish, hit and miss kind of way.This was lots of fun. The author plays himself in the book, so the narrative voice was strong. The supporting cast were...
Fredda come il ghiaccio (1969)
language
English
author
3.38 of 5 Votes: 4
review 1: I wasn't aware that was an early Michael Crichton novel. I am a fan of the Hard Case Crime series which is usually good but this one of the clunkers. It is, as one reviewer also noted, a pretty bad imitation of The Maltese Falcon with stock villians even Warner Brothers would hav...
The Comedy is Finished (2012)
language
English
3.54 of 5 Votes: 1
review 1: I have not read a lot of Westlake's books since I started tracking my reading. I have listened to most of his Dortmunder series which is always fun. This is a very different book. The Westlake humor is there, but this is a much darker tale.It is the end of the 1970's and the r...
La ragazza dei cocktail (2013)
language
English
author
3.52 of 5 Votes: 5
review 1: At his best, there is no greater writer than James M Cain. When the Hound heard that there was a new novel from Cain, he immediately made space at the top of his ‘to read list’. Thankfully, The Cocktail Waitress did not disappoint.After her husband’s death, Joan Medford takes a j...
Killing Castro (1961)
language
English
3.26 of 5 Votes: 3
review 1: It's rare I give a book by Mr. Block anything less than five stars. Nor can I put my finger on why I liked this one less than any of his others. It's not that it's not well-written, because it is. It's not that you are left hanging at the end, even though you are, because I've n...
Zero Cool (1969)
language
English
author
3.38 of 5 Votes: 4
review 1: Добре, че Майкъл Крайтън е писал това...творение под псевдоним (Джон Ланг). Четиво, което спокойно може да бъде забравено в момента, в който човек го затвори. Всъщност, това е и най-доброто, което може да направи, особено ако е почитател на Крайтън.
review 2: Overall ...
Getting Off (2011)
language
English
3.33 of 5 Votes: 2
review 1: Even if I hadn't known this was written by Lawrence Block, I would never have mistaken this for a book by a woman. What happened to story arc? This was just a series of scenes with graphic sex and murder after murder. Did Lawrence Block simply have a deadline to meet and this ...
False Negative (2012)
language
English
author
3.25 of 5 Votes: 3
review 1: Adam Jordan is a type-A newspaper reporter working for an Atlantic City daily in the spring of 1953. When he gets called out by his newspaper for badly botching a story, he is fired, only to have an unlikely angel tome to his rescue. He is hired on to write for True Detective mag...
Gun Work (2000)
language
English
3.53 of 5 Votes: 2
review 1: I loved this book! Good old noir/pulp sensibilities and action set in the present. This is about a ex-soldier whose army buddy asks him for a favor. His wife has been kidnapped and he could use his friend's weapons expertise and bravery to get her back. Then all hell breaks l...
Casino Moon (1994)
language
English
author
3.38 of 5 Votes: 1
review 1: This was really good- it was about the son of a mob boss who tries to go straight, but, in the end, is dragged down by his family connections and the bad decisions he makes. The book is very dark and bleak and there are no happy endings in sight. I did enjoy it however. The chara...
Blood on the Mink (2000)
language
English
3.72 of 5 Votes: 3
review 1: Although best known for his science fiction, Silverberg proves himself equally adept at the hard-boiled crime genre with this novel written 50 years ago and published here for the first time in book form. It's a straight-ahead, no-nonsense page-turner involving an undercover cop ...
The Corpse Wore Pasties (2009)
language
English
author
3.56 of 5 Votes: 1
review 1: It took about 40 pages for me to get into the book, but once I did it was a lot of fun. I liked the tone of the narrator and love his "interogations" of each girl. The solution to the crime was neat and smart. I don't know if Porkpie has written other novels, but I'd be more than...
Nobody's Angel (2010)
language
English
author
3.61 of 5 Votes: 3
review 1: Clark grounds you in the city and presents it as a gray, dying monolith. The story is simple enough but reveals the psyche of "old time" Chicagoans reaction to the grand city's recent descent into violence, poverty, and trauma. The landscape of Chicago is at once glitzy and gritt...
The Dead Man's Brother (2009)
language
English
author
3.33 of 5 Votes: 5
review 1: Gave up on this long ago. It's Zelazny at his worst not his best. Unlikable characters involved in a preposterous plot. That could still be fun but in this case the writing is leaden, the pacing slow, and there is very little, other than uncovering the identity of the killer, ...
Fifty-to-One (2008)
language
English
author
3.79 of 5 Votes: 5
review 1: In an ode to the dime-store era paperbacks, Ardai crafts an intelligent pulp masterpiece while simultaneously saluting his very own Hardcase Crime. 'Fifty-To-One' celebrates the first 50 books from Hardcase Crime with each chapter the title of one of the corresponding published b...
The Cutie (1960)
language
English
3.76 of 5 Votes: 5
review 1: Westlake, Donald E. THE CUTIE. (Orig. 1960; Reprint 2009). ****. Donald Westlake’s passing recently has left a big hole in the world of crime fiction. He was a master of dialog and a clever deviser of plots involving human foibles and weaknesses. This book from Hard Case Cr...
The Cocktail Waitress (2012)
language
English
author
3.52 of 5 Votes: 4
review 1: Cain may very well be my favorite writer. His final posthumous novel is a workshop in how to construct an unreliable narrator--a grotesque, intriguing, and surprisingly believable character, despite the lurid sensationalism that is Cain's hallmark. Unlike any other writer, Cain c...
The Twenty-Year Death (2012)
language
English
3.72 of 5 Votes: 5
review 1: A trio of stand-alone crime/noir novels that actually form a complete story when read together, The Twenty-Year Death is a homage to the novels of George Simenon, Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson. In fact, each novel is written in the style of these authors, and while I haven't ...
Joyland (2013)
language
English
author
3.91 of 5 Votes: 3
review 1: Read this over the weekend and had a good time reading it. It flowed well and was interesting. I did love the description of the amusement park and the characters. I never would have guessed who the murderer was - throughout he seemed like a good guy! The characters were belie...