Customer Reviews

Crime Fiction and Film in the Sunshine State: Florida Noir

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"Florida Noir: Crime Fiction & Film in the Sunshine State" should come with a couple of caveats: The fiction discussed herein is not all "noir" or hard-boiled. The editors admit to using "the broadest possible definition of noir", meaning all crime fiction. This is a book about crime fiction set in Florida. Secondly, there is only one essay about film noir, and it's not worth mentioning. It briefly discusses some films that aren't noir before getting to 1980's "Body Heat". The author of that essay, Ellen Smith, clearly doesn't have much background in film and doesn't even mention "Miami Vice", which surprisingly made pastels the `80s noir aesthetic.

There are 11 essays by 10 writers, including editors Steve Glassman and Maurice O'Sullivan. Ten essays address a variety of topics in Florida crime fiction: the California origins of hard-boiled fiction and its move south, comparing author John D. MacDonald to his character Travis McGee, Florida crime fiction before 1945, the grotesque in the novels of Charles Willeford and Carl Hiassen, the women detectives of TJ MacGugor and Edna Buchanan, novels set in the Florida Keys, nature and ecology in Florida crime fiction, the fairy-tale inspired work of Ed McBain, and crime novels set in North Florida.

This is an interesting resource for Floridians who enjoy crime fiction, as it discusses writers from the early 20th century through the 1990s. The essays are academic but not abstruse or very ideological, so they are not dense. For literary criticism, it's lightweight, but that makes it a readable resource for crime fiction fans. There is also a "Bibliography of Florida Mysteries, 1895-1996" in the back, listed alphabetically by author. "Florida Noir" is a decent introduction to the sub-genre of Florida crime fiction. I give it only 3 stars, because I kept getting the feeling that the authors of those essays could have done better. It's hardly rigorous.