Is the Private Eye Novel a dead genre?

I was a huge fan of these at one time, having grown up in Louisiana myself. He actually moves to the police force in New Iberia before too long, where I have some family. Anyway, I’d warn against reading too many of these very close together, because you start to notice that they’re all structured and plotted nearly identically.

Hey, 80 years old is modern fiction as far as I’m concerned.

And there is absolutely no reason not to read them now. All of those old books are generally very well-written with good plotting and great character studies (aside from the protagonists, who are generally two-dimensional on purpose, to keep the focus on the other characters).

Hey, no argument here. I was just pointing out that they’re the direct opposite of what the OP was asking for.

And to answer that question, I feel that the genre as we know it probably is dead, due to reasons others pointed out above, such as easier research abilities due to technology. And because of that tech, a modern gumshoe story would hardly have any character study in it, which was the old genre’s main appeal to me: The detective going around and interviewing everyone involved and studying their personalities and behavior. And the reader getting drawn in as we get to know these people and their motivations. Using modern tech in such a story would take the heart and soul out of the whole reason we loved those old books.

Thus, all we’ve really got left is the fortunately large number of old novels still available to read, or modern novels that set the time frame in that pre-tech period.

James Ellroy’s old stuff was pretty good, though his style eventually evolved into another thing altogether, but still based in that era.

I know it’s fantasy, and the OP has made it clear that he’s not interested in that, but the Garrett, P.I. series by Glen Cool are super-traditional private dick novels, just with, y’know, elves and stuff. A little goofy at times, a little serous at others, just generally good fun.

I think I’ve read every 80 year old series mentioned, including every Wolfe. Guess Hammett is about the only one mentioned where I have only read a few.

Yeah, I forgot Taylor, have one in the TBR pile. Same with Robicheaux, which I enjoy, but have a tendency to run together.

But I would not call either series “new”…

Don’t get me wrong, I read fantasy and SF PIs, including Garrett, but just not what I was looking for in this thread…

I just finished a fantastic novel by someone I’d never read before. Noir/PI territory with a dissipated narrator set in Montana & California in the 70s. I loved it; up there with the best of Chandler IMO.

Anyway, it’s The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley. He has other books in the genre as well, but I haven’t gotten to them yet.

I just picked up Cash City by Jonathan Fredricks . Only downside is it’s an Audible only audio book. Really enjoying it and fits the PI genre perfectly.

Cash City