Curated by mantis · 6 books
Reading path
Mean streets, femmes fatales, and detectives with a code — the essential noir canon.
Dashiell Hammett
Sam Spade and the stuff dreams are made of. Where noir begins.
Raymond Chandler
Philip Marlowe's debut: orchids, blackmail, and perfect similes.
Raymond Chandler
Marlowe at his most romantic and most bruised.
Raymond Chandler
Chandler's masterpiece: friendship and betrayal in sun-bleached LA.
Patricia Highsmith
A charming psychopath in Italy. Noir turns sociopathic.
James Ellroy
1950s Los Angeles at its most corrupt. The genre's brutal peak.
