It isn't just the Brits who wrote great crime fiction. Mary Roberts Rinehart, an American author born in Pennsylvania, is the genesis for the phrase "The Butler Did It," and Anna Katherine Green is sometimes referred to as the "the mother of the detective novel."

Later, noir was pretty much invented in America, with Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett (cough The Thin Man cough) and Cornell Woolrich exemplifying this style of detective writing.

The first 87th Precinct novel was published by Ed McBain in 1956, and is one of the longest running crime series ever written, with the last book being published in 2005, the year that McBain passed away. Most of the series was published later than the general time frame of this group, but are within the spirit of the group!

And who can forget Rex Stout?

And Erle Stanley Gardner.

And Ellery Queen.

Tigus, you're killing me. (Just saying.)

For a sample of some of the best of American noir, I'd recommend the Library of America's two anthologies, American Noir of the 1930s & 1940s, and American Noir of the 1950s. There are novels by authors such as James M. Cain, Cornell Woolrich, David Goodis, Jim Thompson and Chester Himes in there, but also Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (adapted into a movie by Sydney Pollack, starring Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Susannah York, Bruce Dern, Bonnie Bedelia, and Gig Young) and Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock (adapted for the screen starring Ray Milland, Maureen O'Sullivan, Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton).

And let's not forget the ladies -- there's Patricia Highsmith of course, but some of the other best-known noir novels were written by women as well, such as Vera Caspary's Laura (made into a movie by Otto Preminger, starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price and Judith Anderson).

A major anglophile among the Americans was John Dickson Carr (aka Carter Dickson). Not sure whether we should be including him here or on the other side of the pond (since most of his books are set in Britain)?

And one of the earliest successful American crime novelists was S.S. Van Dine -- if you haven't read anything by him, I'd recommend starting with The Kennel Club Murder. Van Dine's "great detective" was a rich amateur sleuth named Philo Vance ... sort of the New York version of Lord Peter Wimsey (or Nick Charles without the booze, but with all the flair -- incidentally, he was in fact portrayed by William Powell in the novel's movie adaptation, co-starring Mary Astor (of Maltese Falcon fame).

Themis, I had meant to come back and add John Dickson Carr to this thread! I actually bought The Hollow Man used recently, and have been meaning to get to it. I was planning to read it for the Locked Room square of my bingo card, but ended up reading the BLCC anthology instead.

Reply to post #6 (show post):
I shockingly haven't read The Hollow Man yet, either. Though given that Edwards has even given it the nod several times (and he's not the only one to do so, either), I'm now resolved more than ever!

I keep meaning to get to John Dickson Carr. (I was interested to learn a few years ago that he lived here for awhile.)

I'm really into the whole noir thing. I think it's because I have adored "old movies" since I was a wee babe and so many of those are based on the pulpy noir classics mentioned by Moonlight Reader.

Also, while Poe wasn't born in America, he lived a great deal of his life right here in Baltimore, and he wrote here too. One of my favorite things for many years was to go to his grave every year on his birthday to see if I could be THE ONE to spot the mysterious "Poe Toaster" -- I never did, but neither did anyone else. The guy was amazing.

He stopped on the 2009 anniversary - the bicentennial. The man himself would have been very old, and perhaps he chose to do that, or perhaps he had no choice. Whatever - Poe is REVERED in Baltimore. So much that we even named our newish football team after him (our old team was the Colts, but when we got a vote for the new one, the city rebelled and we all voted for the Raven,) and our stadium is also named after him, and a whole bunch of buildings and streets and restaurants... anyway, if you ever come to Baltimore, go visit - there's also a nice museum and his house is sort of still there too.

Ah - here's an unpaid reasonable link (the sun's page on it is behind the pay wall.) https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/01/21/poe-toaster-for-75-years-a-mysterious-man-visited-edgar-allan-poes-grave-poured-himself-a-glass-of-cognac-and-toasted-the-great-poet/

here's a Sun article from outside the pay wall (You can tell this isn't the real Poe Toaster b/c someone got a picture of him, which makes him stupid and the whole thing rather cheap) but anyway, here's a link: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-poe-celebration-20170121-story.html

Reply to post #9 (show post):
What's your favorite of Poe's works? Quite a bit of his work is too dark for me, but there's a lot I love, too. Oddly, none of his mysteries; I find Dupin too verbose. But The Raven, Annabelle Lee, The Masque of the Red Death, The Gold Bug ... I love them all. :)