The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction 1 (Rough Guide Reference) [Paperback]

Rough Guides (Author)

Book Description

Series: Rough Guide Reference | Publication Date: July 16, 2007

The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction takes the reader on a guided tour of the mean streets and blind corners that make up the world’s most popular literary genre. The insider’s book recommends over 200 classic crime novels from masterminds Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith to modern hotshots James Elroy and Patricia Cornwall. You’ll investigate gumshoes, spies, spooks, serial killers, forensic females, prying priests and patsies from the past, present, and future. Complete with extra information on what to read next, all movie adaptions, and illustrated throughout with photos and diagrams …all the evidence that counts

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Barry Forshaw reviews crime fiction for The Independent and The Express, and edits Crime Time magazine

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Rough Guides; 1 edition (July 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843536544
• ISBN-13: 978-1843536543
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 4.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,161,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A guide? Well, roughly...., January 6, 2008

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mrliteral - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction 1 (Rough Guide Reference) (Paperback)

I like crime fiction. The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction by Barry Forshaw, therefore, is right up my alley. Although designed as a reference text, it is only adequate in that respect. What it is better at, however, is giving mystery fans new directions to go in.

After a brief preface, Forshaw divides most of the rest of the book into different crime fiction subgenres such as cop fiction, private eye fiction and historical fiction. In each one of these chapters, he has a brief introduction and then provides a sampling within that category. For example, under "Hardboiled and Pulp", his recommendations (alphabetical by author) include The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett, Kiss Me Deadly by Mickey Spillaine and The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich. There are also occasional pictures and sidebars, either about a particular author or a movie based on a book.

Overall, this a decent enough book but also imperfect. Those familiar with the books mentioned will find occasional errors (for example, he seems to refer to James Bond villains Dr. No and Goldfinger as being associated with SPECTRE; in fact, they worked with SMERSH). Also, although there are some exceptions, Forshaw tends to focus mostly on recent material (2000 or later). There seems to be a bias to include more English authors than probably merited, and any crime fiction fan will find numerous omitted authors (including Ridley Pearson, Randy Wayne White, Ken Follett, David Morrell, Stephen White, Richard North Patterson, Faye Kellerman, Vince Flynn, T. Jefferson Parker and John Katzenbach).

Of course, a book like this is very subjective, but I think Forshaw could have done a better survey of the genre. Nonetheless, for what it does offer - in particular, a chance to be exposed to new writers - and the fact that it is reasonably entertaining to read, I am giving this a low four stars. If you're a crime fiction fan, this will be an interesting but nonessential book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Huge disappointment, May 30, 2010

By 

yardbird (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction 1 (Rough Guide Reference) (Paperback)

The Rough Guide series is generally quite informative, but this entry is completely useless. There are many things such as omitted authors and merits of top five lists with which I disagree, but these are purely subjective, so can obviously be forgiven. The real problems are as follows:
1. Hopeless editing, with a massive number of typographical and more substantive editing errors, some of which lead me to question if the author even read the works upon which he is commenting (for instance, the Kenzie/Genarro series by Dennis Lehane);
2. No attention to thematic detail, rendering the attempt to divide the works into sub-categories meaningless. Dave Robicheaux is a cop, not a P.I. Easy Rawlins IS a P.I., yet appears nowhere. Serial killer books are not thematically represented properly, and so on.
3. It seems as if the author is not really a fan of the genre, but was working to fulfill a contractual obligation, and his heart was not into his work. Any true fan of the genre with a computer and spellcheck could have done a better job.
In short, a complete waste of time and money.