If you had the good fortune of being NoirCon 2012 this weekend then you might have been doubly lucky to hear the panel dedicated to TRUE CRIME. Members of this illustrious panel included - Megan Abbott, Wallace Stroby, Dennis Tafoya and Alison Gaylin.
Saturday
SHP, 507 S. 8th
Street
9:30 – 10:20 True Crime – Alison
Gaylin, Megan Abbott, Wallace Stroby, Dennis Tafoya
Below is the TRUE CRIME CANON
Megan Abbott has taught literature, writing, and film at the New York
University and the State University of New York at Oswego. She has a Ph.D.
in English and American literature from NYU. Her first nonfiction study, The
Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir was
published in 2002 by Palgrave Macmillan. She is the Edgar®-winning author
of the novels Die a Little (2005), The Song Is You (2008), Queenpin (2007), Bury
Me Deep (2009), which was nominated for six awards: the Edgar® Award,
Hammett Prize, the Macavity, Anthony and Barry Awards and the Los Angeles
Times Book Prize, The End of Everything (2012) and most recently Dare Me
(2012). Her writing has appeared in Wall Street Noir, Detroit Noir, Best Crime
and Mystery Stories of the Year, Phoenix Noir, Storyglossia, the Los Angeles Times
Magazine, The Believer, Queens Noir and the LA Noire Anthology.
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Executioner’s Song, Norman Mailer
My Dark Places, James Ellroy
Zodiac, Robert
Graysmith
Wiseguy,
Nick Pileggi
Hellhound on His Trail:The Stalking of Martin
Luther King Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin, Hampton Sides
Columbine,
Dave Cullen
People Who Eat Darkness, Richard Lloyd Parry
Michigan Murders, Edward Keyes
Public Enemies, Bryan Burrough
Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi
Under the Bridge, Rebecca Godfrey
Special mention: Black
Dahlia Avenger, Steve Hodel
Wallace Stroby is an award-winning journalist and the author of the
novels Kings of Midnight, Cold Shot to the Heart, Gone ’til November, The
Heartbreak Lounge and The Barbed-Wire Kiss. Stroby was an editor at The
Star-Ledger of Newark, Tony Soprano’s hometown paper.
Little Man: Meyer Lansky And The
Gangster Life, Robert
Lacey.
Murder Machine, Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci
The Westies, T.J. English
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, David Simon
Special mention: Stranger
Beside Me, Ann Rule
Dennis Tafoya is the author of two critically-acclaimed novels, Dope Thief
and The Wolves of Fairmount Park, and numerous short stories appearing in
collections such as Philadelphia Noir from Akashic Books. His work has been
nominated for two Spinetingler awards and his novels have been optioned for
film. His third novel, The Poor Boy’s Game, is due from St. Martin’s in 2013.
Green River Killer, Jeff Jensen and Jonathan Case
My Friend Dahmer, Derf Backderf
Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi
Devil in the White City, Erik Larsen
True Story,
Michael Finkel
The Poet and the Murderer Simon Worral
Go Down Together, Jeff Guinn
Public Enemies, Bryan Burrough
Death in the City of Light, David King
Echoes in the Darkness, Joseph Wambaugh
Son,
Jack Olsen
Alison Gaylin is a journalist who has covered the arts and entertainment
for more than fifteen years. Her first novel, Hide Your Eyes (2005) with nearly
a quarter of a million copies in print was nominated for an Edgar® in 2006 in
the Best First Novel category. Her USA Today best-selling book And She Was
(Harper Collins 2012) is the first in a new series featuring Brenna Spector,
a private investigator blessed (and cursed) with perfect autobiographical
memory. Its sequel, Into the Dark, is due out next March.
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Chasing Justice, Kerry Max Cook
Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer
Chasing Justice, Kerry Max Cook
Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer
Party Monster, James St. James
Small Sacrifices, Ann Rule
Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth Anger
Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi
Columbine, Dave Cullen
Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi
Columbine, Dave Cullen
Special mention: All She Wanted, Aphrodite Jones
Hmmm, this is a panel I'd like to have heard, since this is my field of (ahem) expertise. (I organized one of the international conferences on Jack the Ripper.) Some of these book choices are ones I'd expect (In Cold Blood), but I'm a teeny bit disappointed to see mainly bestsellers and not much off the beaten path. One I'd recommend: Emlyn Williams' 'Beyond Belief' -- an account of the Moors Murders, written by a British playwright with a lovely style. A lot of Americans are unfamiliar with Hindley & Brady, but I'm sure noir fans are exceptions to that rule.
ReplyDelete