Hard-Boiled Detectives, female and male

December 8, 2008 9:56 PM

Early Female Authors of Hard-Boiled Fiction. Chester Himes and Early African-American Detective Novelists. The Detective's Code. The Femme Fatale. Just a few of the many fascinating offerings at detnovel.com.
posted by mediareport (4 comments total)

"Maureen T. Reddy makes a case [for the 1st authenic HB female detective] for P. D. James' Cordelia Gray, the heroine of An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972)."

I tend to agree with this. I was also a bit bewildered (as was the that author of the blog) that James pretty much dropped her after such a stunning intro. And too -- James sort of undercut Cordelia in that ending exchange with Adam Dagliesh.

After James, the next significant female was easily Sara Paretsky. Grouping her with someone like Grafton is just plain wrong. It's a pity that Paretsky's Warshawski got such a cheesy treatment from Hollywood. I like Kathleen Turner well enough, but it just didn't come together for some reason. Maybe their mistake was drawing attention to themselves "Hey, look at me! I'm a bad-ass woman in a role traditionally given to tough guys like Bogart and Nicholson!". Just do it and let the work speak for itself. The book was layered; the movie was 2D. I'm guessing Julianne Moore woulda been terrific



/Of course, they ALL pale in the shadow of Ross Macdonald.
posted by RavinDave at 11:31 PM on December 8, 2008

Thanks for finding and sharing this, mediareport. I've sent it to a bunch of friends who will certainly not be getting any work done today after clicking the link. If I didn't have so many damn meetings, I'd surely spend my day reading detnovel.com. :-)
posted by lord_wolf at 7:57 AM on December 9, 2008

Of course, they ALL pale in the shadow of Ross Macdonald.

You'll like this post, then.
posted by mediareport at 2:50 PM on December 10, 2008

I never got around to reading the Tony Hillerman stuff. I really need to fill that void, but those are more police procedurals, right? Nothing against those. LOVED Ed McBain ... almost as much as Steven Bochco obviously did (hehhe-he). Still, my heart lies with the lone gumshoe who has essentially given up on the world, save for their dogged determination to clean up their one little corner of it.
posted by RavinDave at 3:27 PM on December 10, 2008