Six American noir masters

Barry Forshaw, author of The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction, named a "critic's chart" of "six American noir masters" for the London Times.

The top two writers on his list:

Dashiell Hammett
The hard-drinking pulpmaster's streetwise Marxism informed the blistering Red Harvest.

Raymond Chandler
Chandler refined the form; The Big Sleep is a sardonic, coruscating diamond of a novel.

Read the full list.

--Marshal Zeringue