Encyclopedia Brown.
If anyone has any SF private eye books (preferably NOT on earth) I would love to hear about them (am already familiar with Altered Carbon & Dresden).
Have you read any Mediterranean Noir? Most of what I’ve read of the genre is focused on the criminal element rather than detectives (Massimo Carlotto), but the second and third books of Jean-Claude Izzo’s Marseilles Trilogy (Chourmo and Solea) are more-or-less private detective stories. Chourmo follows an ex-cop trying to solve his cousin’s murder and he functionally serves the role of a noir detective. Same main character is in the third, but I haven’t read it. You do not need to have read the first to read the second two in the trilogy (minor and kind of obvious spoiler: the main character is still on the police force in the first). These were written in the ‘90s, so it doesn’t really help to answer your question on whether the private-eye genre is dead. Be warned that Mediterranean Noir runs dark, and I often felt like I needed a shower after reading what I’ve read of Izzo and (especially) Carlotto.
I mean, if you’re looking specifically for novels about middle aged guys who wear trenchcoats, drink way too much, suffer head trauma every two days, have no visible means of support, mope around a lot, and yet still manage to bed every woman they meet, then, yeah, that particular version of the PI is probably extinct.
In the off chance you haven’t already read 'em, though, you should give Dennis Lehane’s Kenzie and Gennaro books a try. It’s more grim and grounded than Spenser - it’s about a PI who drinks too much and mopes around because he grew up in an abusive household - but they are recognizably part of the PI tradition.
My late Dad (who was the real PI buff in the family) was a big fan of Don Winslow’s books, but I’ve never read 'em myself.
All Private Eye stories are now CBS procedurals where a broken man with a weird talent solves crime with the help of a tough, no nonsense lady cop.
I have read and enjoyed these. Much more than some other Lehane.
I went through a period in my late twenties of reading at least five of Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe novels. A product of their time, for sure, but that guy could spin a great yarn.
I think they were:
The Big Sleep
The High Window
The Lady in the Lake
Farewell, My Lovely
The Long Goodbye
I’m mostly into police procedural crime novels, but off the top of my head I’d say check out the Easy Rawlins series by Walter Mosely. George Pelecanos has some terrific dark noir-ish private eye crime novels.
I’d also highly recommend checking out the Hard Case Crime imprint if you dig pulpy hardboiled stuff. They do a lot of reprints, but they have quite a bit of new material as well (including graphic novels).
Pelecanos is a great one, as at least two of his series are honest to god private eye/fixer books. The Nick Stefanos series and the Spero Lucas series. Great reads, even if Stefanos (his first books) are a little dated. Lucas is much more recent and damn good stuff.
The Neal Carey mysteries by Don Winslow are quite similar. Also his first books, also a little rundown, but good solid PI fiction. Winslow now makes a very good living writing narcocorridas, so I don’t think he’ll go back to those any time soon.
Lastly, Ross Thomas used a pseudonym to write a series of fixer novels starting with The Brass Go-Between. Good stuff if you’ve never read it before, and if you’re new to Ross Thomas in general you’re in for a treat. Briarpatch is a standalone, semi PI novel and probably his best.
Thinking about this made me do an Amazon search and discovered that Amos Walker is still going strong after 30+ years!
Guess I don’t browse the bookstores any more to find stuff like this out by being Amazon heavy…
I think I did try a Pelecanos once, something about a cop character of his in the 60’s riots. it did not really excite me enough to try more.
I don’t know the answer to the question asked in the thread title, but as far as good writing, my favorite was always Ross Macdonald and his Lew Archer novels. I discovered him in the early 1980’s when I was in my 20’s. He was my introduction to this kind of storytelling.
Anyone who loves the genre and hasn’t read any of his books would be in for a treat, and a long list of well-written and intricately-plotted stories.
Read the sample opening pages of the first book in the series to get an idea. His style hadn’t fully evolved at this point in his career (1949), but this was enough to get me totally hooked, and I obsessively went on to read every book Macdonald had ever written in just a few months.
Oh wait, is she the one that built that tower?
While I love the Op, I have to give the nod to Nero Wolfe. Any detective that weighs a seventh of a ton (or is it a sixth?), refuses to leave the house on a case and has a private chef is aces in my book. Bonus points for possible being the bastard child of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adker.
Help me out here, because I read one of the Nero Wolfe books (I forget which one) and it didn’t make much impression. What would you recommend as a good one to check out?
The Doorbell Rang is considered one of the best and is very much of it’s time (Wolfe vs. Hoover) and has a very satisfying finale.
The Nero Wolfe books are a bit of a hybrid. Archie Goodwin, who narrates, is hardboiled and wisecracking, like one expects an American PI to be, while Wolfe himself is more the aloof Great Detective a la Holmes. The stories are more in the vein of classic mysteries - locked rooms and whatnot. If you like both genres, then the Wolfe books are great, but if you prefer your PIs straight up you may want to look elsewhere. (I’d recommend Too Many Cooks or Some Buried Caesar, though both are a little unusual in that they feature agoraphobic Wolfe outside his beloved brownstone.)
Which is what makes them great. Their only flaw is they tend to be formulaic.
I do love me some Nero Wolfe. I need to go back and read more than I did in college. Apparently he’s a ballpark of 275-300lbs, which means he weighs less than me. . . and is taller than me. . . oh god, the prototypical hilariously oversized fat detective is less fat than me -.-
If you guys keep referring the OP to 80-year-old series, you’re going to kind of prove him right.
I thought of a couple more: Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series is a really excellent PI series set in Galway, Ireland. A bit reminscent of Matt Scudder in that the main character is a drunk and gets bounced from the Garda. I still prefer Rankin’s Rebus series for my British noir, but Bruen is pretty good too.
Also, James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series is a lot of fun, though I’ve only read a few of these. Set in and around New Orleans. Main character also an ex-drunk. Also bounced from the force…that seems to be a recurring theme in these modern PI series.