Word: cains
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These are the essentials for obstinate individualism, a national trait elevated to a romance that not only endures but thrives. The literary descendants of Chandler and his contemporaries James M. Cain and Dashiell Hammett have unleashed stalkers of the urban wildernesses across the country. Parker and George V. Higgins cover Boston; Elmore Leonard and Loren D. Estleman have a lock on Detroit; Stephen Greenleaf and Bill Pronzini have staked out San Francisco, and Washington is in the hands of Ross Thomas. In Cincinnati, the territory belongs to Jonathan Valin...
...today's behavioral standards, the Continental Op is a head case. But his blunt vernacular helped to establish the voice that influenced generations of American writers. Like that other homegrown art form, jazz, the hard-boiled style relied on a formula but encouraged improvisation. James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice) counterpointed violence with steamy sexuality; Chandler's signature note of sarcastic charm can be heard in the opening of his 1936 story Goldfish: "I wasn't doing any work that day, just catching up on my foot-dangling." Currently, Parker's Spenser sings the best sassy blues: "Ideal...
...Someone said a station wagon was going to come by with the clapper in it." Ehrenfried says. "Since it was a nice spring night, we started raising Cain...
...throws one curve and back on base Willie Harkissian, a wheeler-dealer before he even leaves the womb, is born with his twin, Ben. The agreement: Willie will have "what the world calls brains"; Ben will "get out of this cave first." He will play Abel to Willie's Cain, and also be a deadly left-handed hitter, deadly that when, years later, he slams a teammate's pitch into a dark summer night on a date, he hits Clare Bishop in the forehead and she goes into a coma...
...worse than the mark of Cain, or even the mark of the Beast, is the stigma I carry. It gets me laughed at in class, thrown out of bars, and brings me constant shame. What...