Hello everybody! I'm french, 29, and I think this list is off to a good start. You won't find any talk about Paul Cain on DorothyL! The short stories in Seven Slayers could very well serve as a definition of hard-boiled. I remember searching for Fast One, but couldn't find it. Guess the hunt will begin anew! Bill's long defintion was right on the mark. Hard-boiled is more a style than a (sub-)genre in itself. I must confess that I'm a little unclear on english sub-genre names (crime fiction, detective fiction,... - though it seems self-explanatory enough!). In France, the whole mystery genre is called "policier" or "polar", and there are no specific french terms for the sub-genres. Do you make a difference between "noir" and hard-boiled ? Goodis and Thompson are "noir", but are they hard-boiled? Maybe some exemples could help define the term: For instance, what about Gil Brewer, Charles Williams or even Carol O'Connell ? PS: Why "Rara-Avis" ? Laurent Lehmann - # RARA-AVIS: To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" # to majordomo@icomm.ca