Noirboiled Notes

Out of food, out of liquor, even out of coffee.           Lionel White           The Snatchers           1953

“In the room the women come and go Talking of Michael Angelo.” Does that suggest anything to you, sir? Yeah—it suggests to...

He coiled a forearm far back of his own shoulder, swung rabidly with it, caught the bodyguard flat-handed on the side of the face w...

It is is not necessary to know what a person is a afraid of. It is enough to know the person is afraid.           Lawrence Block         ...

This was his Sunday choke. It would have squirted sap from a tree.           Cornell Woolrich           Strangler’s Serenade           195...

Spoilers follow:   I feel like a broken record, or maybe a corrupted MP3 file, waiting for the great series that I know is coming but is n...

So rarely is the truth the simplest possible answer.           Donald E. Westlake           “Party Animal”           19...

Three books into the Matthew Scudder series, I suspect that there may be some self-fulfilling prophecy at work in my reactions thus far: I...

I hope I break even today; I could use the cash.           Donald E. Westlake           “Horse Laugh”           1986

In  Time to Murder and Create , the second Matthew Scudder novel, a dead man leaves Scudder payment to find his killer, and our hero pur...

Life is a gamble, at terrible odds— if it was a bet you wouldn’t take it.           Tom Stoppard           Rosencrantz ...

You open a door in New York, you never know what’s in there.           Donald E. Westlake           Get R...

Last Year’s Snow  is the third of four novels published by unsung noirboiled pioneer Don Tracy in the 1930s. This everyman  noir complè...

If it hadn’t been what it was, it would’ve been beautiful.           Megan Abbott           Dare Me           2012 

My apologies to anyone who has left a comment recently only to have me ignore it. I have just discovered that my comments notifications have...

Never break a law you don’t intend to break.           Donald E. Westlake           “Ask a Silly Question”           1981

This mob whodunit would probably not have warranted a reprint by Hard Case Crime were it not Donald E. Westlake’s debut (or, more accurate...

all life is six to five against           Damon Runyon           “A Nice Price”           1937