Mike Hammer meets Hammer Films?

October 11, 2006 6:06 PM

Know any good horror/crime fiction?

I just finished the not-bad vampire-detective novel Already Dead by Charlie Huston, and was wondering if there were any other good crosses between hardboiled and horror? Books, comics, film -- I'm interested in all of them.

As a side question, although it was asked last year, any other cutting-edge, gruesome horror book recommendations would be welcome. I'm interested in learning more about the growing zombie-lit craze, and anything that doesn't resemble Anne Rice is welcome.

posted by Bookhouse to media & arts (27 comments total)

Dracula is good enough to qualify as literature, but perhaps lacking a bit in the who-done-it department.
posted by caddis at 6:32 PM on October 11, 2006

Try "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", by Edgar Allan Poe. It's in the public domain.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 6:34 PM on October 11, 2006

You might pick up the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror anthologies, which always feature extensive review essays and certainly showcase some interesting horror fiction.
posted by thomas j wise at 6:39 PM on October 11, 2006

I'm sorry, I should have mentioned that I'm pretty well-read in the classics of both genres, and am looking for newer stuff.
posted by Bookhouse at 6:47 PM on October 11, 2006

Dracula is good enough to qualify as literature

You could try Kim Newman's Anno Dracula and its sequels. They are a mashup of hammer movies, silents and detective fiction set in a world where vampires have become ubiquitous. In the first one, someone known as "Silver Knife" is haunting Victorian Whitechapel dissecting female vampire prostitutes...
posted by meehawl at 7:06 PM on October 11, 2006 [1 favorite]

I'll second Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. They're a great jumping-off point to find new authors and books. The round-ups of the year's new publications are alone worth the cost of the book.
posted by fuzzbean at 7:17 PM on October 11, 2006

This doesn't exactly fit your request, but it sprang immediately to mind: Under the Skin by Michael Faber.

Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory might also be up your alley, as would, perhaps, Danielewski's House of Leaves.

Also, if you haven't read any Kathe Koja, hunt some down. Kink is my fave but doesn't fit your requirements. The Cipher and Bad Brains
posted by dobbs at 7:19 PM on October 11, 2006

might.
posted by dobbs at 7:19 PM on October 11, 2006

Please excuse the sudden stop, something happened with the formatting. Trying again...
Hey what do you know. Wikipedia tells me that one of Newman's vampire potboiler stories is online. From the description:
1977. The story's first-person narrator, a private investigator, investigates the death of his ex-wife, found at the bottom of her swimming pool with an iron stake driven through her, and the disappearance of her daughter, last seen falling in with a crowd of vampire cultists. (The private investigator, though not named in the story, is clearly Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, and his ex-wife is the recurring character Linda Loring, whom Marlowe married in Chandler's unfinished final novel Poodle Springs - after initially rejecting the idea because he knew it wouldn't last.)
posted by meehawl at 7:24 PM on October 11, 2006

It's not crime - even though my bookstore mistakenly had it shelved as such - but I just read "The Ruins" by Scott Smith (the guy who wrote "A Simple Plan" a few years back). A friend recommended it to me so I picked it up even though I don't normally read horror. Apparently Stephen King also heaped praise on it earlier this summer. It's about a bunch of college kids on vacation in Mexico... and things go seriously wrong. It's pretty darn gruesome, actually. Definitely Halloween reading.
posted by web-goddess at 7:35 PM on October 11, 2006

The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross is a great combination of Len Deighton-esque spy thrillers, Lovecraftian horror, and a bit of cyberpunkish sci-fi.
posted by mbrubeck at 7:36 PM on October 11, 2006

I'll second House of Leaves. I enjoyed it while reading it, and it's stuck with me in a way few other books have. Creeeepy.
posted by tomble at 7:45 PM on October 11, 2006

Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite is a pretty gruesome and poetic serial-killer novel. I don't think it's terribly mysterious, though. I like her quite a bit, although she's recently started writing more mainstream non-horror stuff.
posted by I Am Not a Lobster at 7:48 PM on October 11, 2006

"hardboiled and horror" -- I might have a different idea about "horror" but the Dexter novels by Jeff Lindsay are hardboiled. Imagine Phillip Marlowe as a serial killer. review w/spoilers

It's now also a series on Showtime, but I can't tell you how well they translated it to tv.
posted by ?! at 8:03 PM on October 11, 2006

Listen to dobbs about Kathe Koja, and to the people recommending Year's Best Fantasy and Horror; Ellen Datlow writes the Horror summations in the latter, and they'll direct you year-by-year to almost everything happening in the field. Check out Michael Blumlein's X, Y, a body-swap gender-swap horror-fest of the first order. Check out Frank Miller's Sin City comics and the movie adaptation, which are morally questionable but technically accomplished (I'd say the same about the adaptation of Requiem for a Dream but it's outside your remit) noirish nightmares. 28 Days Later is zombie-noir and in your face; it also surprised me by being good.
posted by cgc373 at 9:08 PM on October 11, 2006

Charlain Harris: The Southern Vampire series

Jim Butcher, his stuff is in the process of being a series on Sci Fi
posted by legotech at 9:14 PM on October 11, 2006

For horror/crime/mystery, the first book that popped into my head was The Vampire Files by PN Elrod. A vampire detective of the the 1930's gumshoe variety.

I wouldn't give it the 5 stars it's rated on Amazon, but it's a fun read.
posted by kingjoeshmoe at 9:39 PM on October 11, 2006

James Ellroy is pretty horrific if you ask me. In a good way. I also really liked tropic of night.
posted by Divine_Wino at 10:03 PM on October 11, 2006

I second Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory: A Novel, which was just the right amount of disturbing, as well as Scott Smith's The Ruins, which was surprisingly scary.

I just finished Max Brooks' World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, which I very much enjoyed. The prequel, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, is fun as well, although completely different and not quite as good. For a more detective-ey book, maybe The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova might fit.

When it comes to horror comics, I can't recommend Walking Dead enough, it's fantastic. If you think you might like the zombie superheroes thing, then Marvel Zombies was a lot of fun as well. Robert Kirkman really knows his zombies!
posted by gemmy at 10:41 PM on October 11, 2006

Work you way through John Connolly's Charlie Parker series. It starts with Every Dead Thing.
posted by oh pollo! at 1:14 AM on October 12, 2006

Laurell K Hamilton "Anita Blake- Vampire Hunter" series, although as it gets on to books 9, 10,11 it becomes more of a sex manual for the polyamorous (OK with a werewolf, were-leopard, various vampires, and a slightly more than human female corpse-raiser) but there still lots of weird, horror moments.
posted by Wilder at 1:41 AM on October 12, 2006

mehawl, I've been looking for that book for ages but couldn't remember the author or what it was called! Thanks so very much for putting it out there. It's an excellent read.
(/derail)
posted by ninazer0 at 4:43 AM on October 12, 2006

Koji Suzuki's Ring is sort of a detective-horror story. The book is much better than the Japanese film (and infinitely better than the American remake). I felt physically ill when I finished it and worked out what was going on. Ill in a good way.

It doesn't have zombies, but it does have... well, I won't say. But if you've only seen the film you don't know the half of it.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 5:09 AM on October 12, 2006

i second whoever mentioned james ellroy, not so much horror as gritty (okay HORRIBLY gritty) crime goodness. but i elect "The Alienist" by Caleb Carr. and his other book who's name i am forgetting. great nyc historical serial killer type mind-bender with plenty of crime and horror. I am darn well read, and this guy more than keeps up.
posted by metasav at 7:24 AM on October 12, 2006

Anything by David Cronenberg or Dario Argento is good.
posted by Monkey0nCrack at 7:54 AM on October 12, 2006

You might check out Thirteen Bullets. It's a serialized novel of vampires and the detectives and state police who chase them. The same author also has three zombie serials and is currently on a werewolf one. They're pretty good and a somewhat different take on the genres.
posted by sevenless at 1:39 PM on October 12, 2006