Photo: Louis Monier/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images (1999)
Sample of authors
Crumley, James
The American author and teacher James Arthur Crumley never reached bestseller status. However, he was instrumental in the development of hardboiled crime fiction from the 1970s onwards.
Crumley was born at Three Rivers, southern Texas. His father was an oil field foreman and his mother a waitress. The family was poor; his mother forced her son to attend church, but she never went herself since...
Literary figures
Race Williams
Gender: Male
He is considered to be the very first of the most cynical, violent and so-called hard-boiled detectives in crime fiction. He shoots first, and asks questions later, and is the main character in a suite of novels and short stories by Carroll John Daly. Race Williams is a large and strong man, quick-witted and skilled with weapons. He works first in New York and Chicago, and later on the American...