Ben at Dead End Follies is hosting Smooth Criminals, a 2012 reading challenge focusing on different elements of crime fiction. I've promised myself not to sign up for too many challenges this year, especially now that I'm participating in a book club - I don't want half my books to be chosen under constraints. But I like crime fiction, and this seems like a good way to learn a little more about the genre.
Tentative book choices:
- Hardboiled: The Big Sleep or The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler - Chandler has been on my to-read list for ages so it's about time I read him.
- Noir Classic: In a Lonely Place by Dorothy Hughes. The movie is one of my favorites & I had forgotten it was based on a novel, which I understand is quite different from the movie. Also, how could I resist a classic noir written by a woman?
- Prison Book: Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
- Author did time: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut or Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Psychopath protagonist: The Collector by John Fowles
- Gothic novel: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde or Dracula by Bram Stoker
- Classic revolving around a crime: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne or We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
- Making myself read it: The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
