The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1930)
When private-eye stories first started appearing in pulp magazines like “Black Mask,” they were just OK. It took a former Pinkerton operative with a stripped-down style and a fiery rage roiling underneath to make art out of pulp, as Dashiell Hammett did in dozens of stories and a handful of novels. Chances are, when picking up “The Maltese Falcon,” you’ll think of the movie with Humphrey Bogart, but Hammett’s private eye, Sam Spade, is a rougher animal who knows when he’s being played for a sap, and definitely doesn’t let romantic feelings get in the way of the truth.
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (1953)
Crime fiction readers often gravitate toward Hammett or Raymond Chandler. Hammett is more my speed, but I’m always awe-struck by Chandler’s depictions of a dissipated Los Angeles and its doomed populace, which is on fullest display in this book — his longest and best outing featuring the private eye Philip Marlowe, who tries to stay morally upright in an increasingly corrupt world.
If you’ve read it and love it, try … Chandler’s “Farewell, My Lovely”; Hammett’s “The Continental Op”; or “Solomon’s Vineyard,” by Jonathan Latimer
The Galton Case by Ross Macdonald (1959)
Ross Macdonald was the rightful heir to Chandler and Hammett, though it took a few books for his private eye, Lew Archer, to find his footing. “Galton” merged all of Macdonald’s real-life compulsions, obsessions and tragedies — including the troubles of his only daughter, Linda — into a close psychological study of human behavior, and how generations of family tragedy can’t help but inform the present. It’s territory that he would plumb in all his subsequent novels.
If you’ve read it and love it, try … books by Joseph Hansen, Robert B. Parker or Joe Gores
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (1990)
Mosley’s first published novel to feature his legendary detective, Easy Rawlins, opens in Los Angeles after the end of World War II. Days after losing his job, Easy is approached in a bar by a well-dressed stranger who hires him to locate a young woman: “You just find out where she is and whisper it in my ear. That’s all.” Mosley, who would go on to write more than a dozen novels featuring Easy, establishes him here as a man of his people — weak-kneed for women, wary of gangsters — and an unwitting chronicler of societal change.
If you’ve read it and love it, try … series books by Gary Phillips, Robert Crais or John Shannon
Sleep With Slander by Dolores Hitchens (1960)
This novel — one of the best hard-boiled private-eye novels ever written — features the distinctly original Jim Sader, who works the seedy corners of Long Beach, Calif. “He wondered fleetingly why it seemed so often to be dirty linen which was brought to him. Why couldn’t he be asked, once, to run down a missing masterpiece?” Unsavory or not, a job’s a job, and Sader will do whatever needs to be done.
If you’ve read it and love it, try … “No Good From a Corpse,” by Leigh Brackett; “My Darkest Prayer,” by S.A. Cosby; or books by Stephen Mack Jones
Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky (1982)
Paretsky’s private eye, V.I. Warshawski — once described by The New York Times as a “tough, sexy, karate-chopping hero” — is far more than Philip Marlowe in a skirt; she’s rooted in the social justice and second-wave feminism worlds Paretsky knows well from her own work and life. V.I. made her debut in “Indemnity Only” and has since appeared in 21 more novels.
If you’ve read it and love it, try … Karen Kijewski’s Kat Colorado novels; Sandra Scoppettone’s Lauren Laurano series; books by Valerie Wilson Wesley
The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout (1935)
I’ve read the bulk of Stout’s series featuring the orchid-tending, food-loving detective Nero Wolfe and his capable assistant Archie Goodwin. Do I remember all the plots? Not really. The point is to inhabit Stout’s version of Manhattan, a place filled with sumptuous brownstones, beautiful flowers and desperate people looking for answers from Wolfe, who always has them. “League” is an early series standout, but any installment will offer reliable delight.
If you’ve read it and love it, try … Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr and Chip Harrison series
Dead in the Frame by Stephen Spotswood (2025)
I adore Spotswood’s series featuring the ace private investigator Lillian Pentecost and her assistant Will Parker. The two of them have an easy yet prickly chemistry, which comes to the forefront when Pentecost is arrested for murder and Parker has to figure out what really happened. Start here, then work your way through the earlier books.
If you’ve read it and love it, try … the Viviana Valentine books by Emily J. Edwards
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (2004)
Atkinson’s famous detective Jackson Brodie — who makes his first appearance here investigating a grisly murder case — is well-versed in the art of running away from police work, marriages, children and responsibility. But as the meticulously constructed “Case Histories” demonstrates, he is but one piece of a larger human puzzle, which Atkinson explores brilliantly.
If you’ve read it and love it, try … books by Liza Cody, Stella Duffy or Laura Lippman
The Eighth Circle by Stanley Ellin (1958)
Ellin, a longtime favorite of mine for his rug-pulling suspense stories, wrote several novels, of which this is far and away the best. Murray Kirk isn’t a taciturn private dick: He’s a regular guy investigating crimes in a New York City that feels lived-in and familiar, but very much of its mid-1950s time. He keeps his emotions on ice until he meets the fiancée of a young cop accused of bribery, and then the dam breaks. Kirk emerges a changed man, and so will the reader.
If you’ve read it and love it, try … Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder novels; David Markson’s Harry Fannin duology; “Motherless Brooklyn,” by Jonathan Lethem
The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley (1978)
Crumley, an Army veteran, started writing detective fiction in the mid-1970s, a time of maximum American disillusionment, and his work resonates right now. “Kiss” introduces the hard-drugging, ramshackle Montana private eye C.W. Sughrue (“‘Shoog’ as in sugar, honey,” the detective explains, “and ‘rue’ as in rue the goddamned day”), as he wends his way through a mind-bending landscape of sex and substances and betrayals.
If you’ve read it and love it, try: “Falling Angel,” by William Hjortsberg; “The New York Trilogy,” by Paul Auster
Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran (2011)
Claire DeWitt, who figures in two more books and several stories, is an iconoclast — the punk rocker of the P.I. world. Investigating the disappearance of a lawyer in New Orleans, she depends heavily on her intuition and the I Ching, often while smoking a little weed.
If you’ve read it and love it, try … Elizabeth Hand’s Cass Neary novels; Lisa Lutz’s Spellman series
Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton (2002)
Both Grafton and her intrepid, tough-as-nails private investigator, Kinsey Millhone — who debuted in “A Is for Alibi” — are at their best in “Q is for Quarry.” The novel, which recalls the real-life “Lompoc Jane Doe” case, was the inspiration for the DNA Doe Project. Grafton’s intricately crafted mystery offers a convincing resolution to her version of the case, one that suggests an emotional truth where real-world answers are yet to be uncovered.
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