THE LAST GOOD KISS - James Crumley

This starts with private eye C W Sughrue tracking down a writer out on a bender and leads into the search for a girl missing in San Francisco for 10 years.

Assisting Sughrue is the alcoholic bulldog 'Fireball' and the 'writer' he has managed to track down.

This story takes us through the really seedy west coast of the USA and it is without a doubt Crumley's masterpiece.

This book would be one of the five best hard boiled detective novels ever written.

I am a huge fan of Crumley's but it is not an exaggeration on my behalf to describe it as brilliant,this is not hyperbole simply the truth.

Rolling Stone magazine says " The Last Good Kiss" ..the last good mystery.

THE SIMPLE ART OF MURDER - Raymond Chandler

Unfortunately, I believe this is the last collection of Chandlers available.

This collection starts with an essay published in 1950 where he argues the virtues of the crime novel as literature and does a very good job . This essay was originally published in The Atlantic magazine.

After the essay there are eight short stories all originally published in the "pulps'. None feature Marlowe but the same moral code is apparent throughout.

There is one delightful story " Pearls are a Nuisance' which I think is a genuine hat tip to Dashiell Hammett and The Thin Man.

This collection was published while Chandler was still alive and are the best of the best as far as his short stories go.

He is an exceptional writer and its a real shame there are no more stories to discover.