--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Harry Joseph Lerner <harry.joseph.lerner@...> wrote:
> My quick question is this...I recently read Charles Willeford's THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY and was very intrigued by the story being the lead-up to the crime. That is, how the story was all about the events and motiviation that ultimately lead to the commision of the crime in question. The crime itself was, at best, tangential to the story. It was a very refreshing approach to story telling (in my admittedly limited experience.)
> Any suggestions for other hard-boiled or noir stories that follow a similar pattern?
Well...at the moment, most of the items that come to mind might not quite comport with what you're asking, but they are essentially about matters either leading up to the initial crime or otherwise make that act not quite the focus of the story...rather obvious examples being Robert Bloch's PSYCHO, Dashiell Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON, John MacDonald's THE EXECUTIONERS and Albert Camus's THE STRANGER. I'm sure I'll come up with some more narrowly-focused and less clangorous examples shortly.
Todd Mason
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 19 Oct 2010 EDT