Friday, January 01, 2010

Counting Down the First 75

My intention this morning was to post yet another entry in The Rap Sheet’s ongoing Friday blog series highlighting great but forgotten crime novels. However, since all but a couple of diehards seem to be taking this New Year’s Day off from that series, and most readers are probably avoiding their computers today, hunkered down instead before televised football games with friends or recovering from last night’s celebratory overindulgences, I am going to hold our latest “forgotten books” post--about Derek Raymond’s controversial 1990 novel, I Was Dora Suarez--until next Friday, January 8.

Meanwhile, since that forthcoming Raymond write-up will be the milestone 76th installment of our popular series, I thought I’d recap the previous 75 novels we’ve championed over the last year and a half. Several readers of this blog have asked for just such a summary, and now I can give it to them. Below, you’ll find the book titles and authors, with the names of people who’ve commented on those novels in parentheses:

How the Dead Live, by Derek Raymond (Russel D. McLean)
The Devil’s Home on Leave, by Derek Raymond (John Harvey)
He Died with His Eyes Open, by Derek Raymond (Tony Black)
The Staked Goat, by Jeremiah Healy (Libby Fischer Hellmann)
Nightmare Alley, by William Linday Gresham (Kelli Stanley)
The First Deadly Sin, by Lawrence Sanders (L.J. Sellers)
The Dolly Dolly Spy, by Adam Diment (Tom Cain)
Freak, by Michael Collins (Russell Atwood)
Who Killed Palomino Molero? by Mario Vargas Llosa
(Marshall Browne)
The Cracked Earth, by John Shannon (Dick Adler)
The Last One Left, by John D. MacDonald (Bill Cameron)
Room to Swing, by Ed Lacy (Art Taylor)
Someone Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe, by Nan and Ivan Lyons (Jeffrey Cohen)
Solomon’s Vineyard, by Jonathan Latimer (Mike Ripley)
Modesty Blaise, by Peter O’Donnell (Vicki Delany)
Modus Operandi, by Robin W. Winks (Stephen Miller)
The Eighth Circle, by Stanley Ellin (J. Kingston Pierce)
The Woman Chaser, by Charles Willeford (Kathryn Miller Haines)
The Friends of Eddie Coyle, by George V. Higgins (William Landay)
GBH, by Ted Lewis (Ray Banks)
The Criminal, by Jim Thompson (Nate Flexer)
Trent’s Last Case, by E.C. Bentley (Stefanie Pintoff)
The Depths of the Forest, by Eugenio Fuentes (Ann Cleeves)
Putting the Boot In, by Dan Cavanagh (Michael Walters)
Switch, by William Bayer (Col Bury)
Sympathy for the Devil, by Kent Anderson (John Shannon)
The Quiet Strangers, by John Buxton Hilton (Stephen Booth)
Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman, by E.W. Hornung (Chris Ewan)
No Orchids for Miss Blandish, by James Hadley Chase
(James R. Benn)
War Against the Mafia, by Don Pendleton (Matt Hilton)
Daddy Cool, by Donald Goines (Gary Phillips)
Edith’s Diary, by Patricia Highsmith (Jason Starr)
Night of the Panther, by E.C. Ayres (J. Kingston Pierce)
Death of a Unicorn, by Peter Dickinson (Keith Raffel)
The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Crichton (Anthony Rainone)
The Bigger They Come, by A.A. Fair (J. Kingston Pierce)
Death of a Citizen, by Donald Hamilton (Rob Kantner)
The Double Take, by Roy Huggins (J. Kingston Pierce)
The Overseer, by Jonathan Rabb (Simon Wood)
A Coffin for Dimitrios, by Eric Ambler (Ali Karim)
The Scarf, by Robert Bloch (John Peyton Cooke)
The Ebony Tower, by John Fowles (Michael G. Jacob)
The Grifters, by Jim Thompson (Chris Knopf)
A Clubbable Woman, by Reginald Hill (Simon Wood)
The Bloody Bokhara, by William Campbell Gault (David Fulmer)
Journey into Fear, by Eric Ambler (Charles Cumming)
Despair, by Vladimir Nabokov (Robert Eversz)
Marathon Man, by William Goldman (Linwood Barclay)
Mayhem, by J. Robert Janes (Cara Black)
The Caves of Steel, by Isaac Asimov (Jane Finnis)
The 12:30 from Croydon, by Freeman Wills Crofts
(Dolores Gordon-Smith)
The Golden Crucible, by Jean Stubbs (Amy Myers)
Rilke on Black, by Ken Bruen (Tony Black)
The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey (Judith Cutler)
Nine Times Nine, by Anthony Boucher (Jeffrey Marks)
The Three Coffins, by John Dickson Carr (Edward Marston)
Some Must Watch, by Ethel Lina White (Mary Reed)
The Golden Gate Murders, by Peter King (Anthony Flacco)
The Big Bow Mystery, by Israel Zangwill (Will Thomas)
Coffin’s Got the Dead Guy on the Inside, by Keith Snyder
(Timothy Hallinan)
The Twisted Thing, by Mickey Spillane (Max Allan Collins)
The Falling Man, by Mark Sadler (Robert J. Randisi)
Don’t Cry for Me, by William Campbell Gault (Ed Gorman)
No Human Involved, by Barbara Seranella (Louise Ure)
Watcher in the Shadows, by Geoffrey Household (Mike Ripley)
Cutter and Bone, by Newton Thornburg (Kirk Russell)
Funeral in Berlin, by Len Deighton (Tony Broadbent)
God’s Pocket, by Pete Dexter (David Corbett)
Chinaman’s Chance, by Ross Thomas (Tim Maleeny)
I Am the Cheese, by Robert Cormier (Steve Hockensmith)
The Honest Dealer, by Frank Gruber (Dick Lochte)
When the Sacred Gin Mill Closes, by Lawrence Block (Dick Adler)
The January Corpse, by Neil Albert (Kevin Burton Smith)
The Lunatic Fringe, by William L. DeAndrea (J. Kingston Pierce)
Memoirs of an Invisible Man, by H.F. Saint (Ali Karim)

2 comments:

Louis Burklow said...

I just began receiving The Rap Sheet two months ago, so I appreciated reading your memories of The Lunatic Fringe from 2008. I fondly remember discovering that book then as well. As a college freshman, I was able to get my parents to buy it for one of my Christmas presents. It's one of my favorite historical mysteries, if for no other reason than the important supporting role for TR. It's about time to reread it. Thanks for the reminder.

kathy d. said...

What happened to "Bad Things Happen" by Harry Dolan?

I read the rave review at the Rap Sheet and on that basis, read it and loved it, passed it to a friend who also loved it.

By the way, he's writing a second book featuring the two main characters.