Hardboiled Mystery Writers: Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross MacDonald: A Literary Reference

. Carroll & Graf Publishers, $22 (324pp) ISBN 978-0-7867-1029-4

Replete with photographs and reproductions""of manuscript pages, dust jackets, movie posters and advertisements""not to mention contemporary reviews, interviews, excerpts and biographical investigations, Hardboiled Mystery Writers takes a behind-the-gritty-streets look at the lives and times of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Ross Macdonald. Matthew J. Bruccoli (whos an English professor and F. Scott Fitzgerald expert) and Richard Layman (The Letters of Dashiell Hammett) offer a slick reference book thats informative, highly readable (the poor SOB was never happy, they say of Chandler, in true hard-boiled style) and a must-have for all devotees of the genre.

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