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Portrait of James Crumley 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...

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Literary figures

Flavia de Luce

Gender: Female

In the 1950s, the motherless Flavia de Luce was not highly regarded by her father and sisters. She was indeed a rather ordinary and everyday 11-12-year-old (with dental braces), but mature for her age, and determined too, with a mind of her own and smart, and she busied herself with nasty-smelling chemistry experiments. Besides, she solved murders – for which the police resented her – in the boo...

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