What I found most interesting is what the list says about the changing nature of crime fiction. It’s also good to see the list give a nod to the more pulpy and noir side of crime fiction, by including Charles Willeford’s Miami Blues and Chester Hime’s A Rage In Harlem. Curiously, in addition to The Long Goodbye, it includes Playback, the last book Chandler wrote and generally thought of as his weakest. Many of the inclusions are obvious: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Poe, Hammett, Ruth Rendell (writing as Barbara Vine) and Chandler. These authors penned solid thrillers and certainly sold a lot (Creasey wrote over 600 books under 28 pseudonyms). Edgar Wallace, John Creasey and Earle Stanley Gardner all have more than one title represented. Much of it is the literary equivalent of meat and three veg in front of ABC 1 on a Friday night. To say the list is Anglo-centric is an understatement. Third, as befits such a large canon of writing, I’ll fess up now to not having heard of all of the authors (who is EC Bentley, anybody?) That means no James Lee Burke or Val McDermid. Second, I won’t try and define the term "classic", except to say looking at the list we’re talking older books, which means, for the most part, dead authors. First, I have no idea the rights restrictions Penguin faced. How comprehensive is Penguin's list? Three quick caveats before I weigh in. Too highbrow for The Book of Lists, but people who read crime fiction will have strong opinions about who is included and who got left out and shouldn’t have been – and I’m no exception.It’s smart marketing, too – and fair enough, as any publisher prepared to take a punt on reprinting 50 old books and selling the relatively cheap price of $9.95, deserves to make a profit out of it. Picking 50 crime classics, now that’s an ambitious list.
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