The classic crime curriculum

Given the comments on Saturday's post, I think it is fairly clear that the consensus is to add Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo's, Roseanna, as the final book on the classic crime curriculum. That makes the full list:

James Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely (1940)
Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon (1930)
Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr Ripley (1955)
Dorothy Sayers, The Nine Tailors (1934)
Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Roseanna (1965)
Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance (1934)
Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me (1952)

One thing that strikes me about this list is that 1934 was a very good year for crime fiction! I'm looking forward to reading these over the next 12 months. Many thanks for everybody's suggestions. I'll post more on the full list over the coming days.

The Lazy Sunday Service

I've headed off for the weekend to try and wrap up The White Gallows for submission tomorrow. Yesterday I decided to undertake fairly major edits to the ending, adding a new scene, and thankfully I feel much happier now. I forgot to bring Havana Fever away with me, which I'm half way through, but I did pack Megan Abbott's The Song is You. When I'm not immersed in my own fictional landscape of Meath, I've been losing myself in early 1950s Hollywood. Talk about world's apart.

My posts this week
Blind spots
Dublin port company suggests that trade is stabilising
January reviews
Diaspora strategy and uneven regional development
A map day
Farmland prices down, sales up
Classic crime fiction, the first results
The final spot on the classic crime curriculum

The final spot on the classic crime curriculum

Yesterday I posted the nine of the books that would form the Classic Crime Fiction Curriculum - a list of must read, pre-1970 crime novels. There is one space left on the list. The following books all came joint tenth, but I can only pick one. The question is which one? Which of these fifteen books is an ideal complement to the nine already selected? Let me know your choice and the reason why and, based on the responses, I'll select the tenth book for the curriculum.

John Buchan. The Thirty Nine Steps
James Cain, Double Indemnity
Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
Edmund Crispin, The Moving Toyshop
Agatha Christie, Five Little Pigs
Agatha Christie, Murder at the Vicarage
Ngaio Marsh, A Surfeit of Lampreys
Ross Macdonald, The Moving Target
Edgar Allen Poe, Murders in the Rue Morgue
Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night
Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Roseanna
Mickey Spillane, I, The Jury
Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time
Cornell Woolrich, The Bride Wore Black

Classic Crime Fiction, the first results

I've been through the first results of the Classic Crime Fiction Curriculum Challenge. I received 15 lists, and thanks to all those who took part. The full list included 114 books, all but 24 of which received only one vote. Only 9 books received 3 or more votes (see below) and the clear winner on 6 was The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr Ripley
James Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice
Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely
Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Dorothy Sayers, Nine Tailors
Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance
Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me

I'll post up the 15 books that all scored 2 votes each tomorrow and hopefully you'll be able to tell me which one most deserves the last berth on the curriculum list. There were a number of authors who had several different books nominated resulting in their votes being split across different titles. I'll also do a most popular author list in the next few days.

A map day

I've spent today writing a short piece for an Italian journal on post-representational cartography - which sounds more pretentious than it is - so I thought I'd give a plug to FloatingSheep.org, a blog that produces some interesting and quirky maps. The one to the right is the distribution of bookstores to baptist churches. I'll let you work out what you think about the lack of overlap between the two sets of dots ...

January reviews

A slow month of reading, especially in the latter half of the month. It's been a while since I read only one book in a week. Last week I read none but my own whilst I tried to deal with other things. I'm slowly making my way through Havana Fever by Leonardo Padura at the minute, so that'll be the next review up. My book of the month. Hmmm. I'll go with Via Delle Oche.

Dead Set by Kel Robertson ****
Up in Honey's Room by Elmore Leonard **
The Fugitive Pigeon by Donald Westlake ***
Via Delle Oche by Carlo Lucarelli ****
Shinjuku Shark by Arimasa Osawa **
Isle of Joy by Don Winslow ****
The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley ****

Blind spots

I've been working away on The White Gallows for the past week, trying to tighten and clean the text. Every time I read through it I spot more small typos and quirky phrasing. My particular blind spot are small words - a, as, in, to, etc - which when I read the text are there, but in reality aren't, and hononyms. One reviewer picked up I'd used 'rye' instead of 'wry' in The Rule Book and I discovered yesterday that I'd managed to do the same in this one as well. It's very frustrating trying to spot a hole in the text when you're convinced that it's not there! I'm sure everyone must have some kind of blind spot ... I just wish I could cure mine. Where is an independent proof reader when you need one?