West Coast Noir: Eight Easy Pieces

By Alta Journal

Noir is a genre made for the West Coast, a landscape defined by dreams—and the disappointment of a dream deferred. Read the related article here.

The Maltese Falcon

Dashiell Hammett

$16.00 $14.88

Serialized in 1929 in "Black Mask" and one of the earliest noir novels, "The Maltese Falcon" introduces Sam Spade, who moves through the streets of San Francisco like an avenging angel, bound by no code but his own.

Fast One

Paul Cain

$15.95

Noir comes to Los Angeles in this early, and often overlooked, masterpiece, the story of a tough guy named Gerry Kells, who gets caught up in a mob turf war in the waning days of Prohibition. Southern California has never looked so bleak.

Double Indemnity

James M. Cain

$16.00 $14.88

One of the absolute touchstones of the genre, this taut, explosive novel chronicles an insurance scam gone wrong. Raymond Chandler worked on the screenplay for Billy Wilder’s 1944 movie adaptation.

In a Lonely Place

Dorothy B Hughes

$15.95 $14.83

In this landmark novel, Hughes creates perhaps the greatest unreliable narrator in the history of noir, a former fighter pilot adrift in Los Angeles…until, that is, his true nature is revealed.

The Long Goodbye

Raymond Chandler

$17.00 $15.81

The last great novel Chandler wrote—and the one in which he reinvents the genre. Philip Marlowe is older, tired if not quite beaten, and as he investigates a couple of suspicious deaths, his vulnerability becomes exposed.

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