Six dark tales of fatherhood crime and noir

Zach Vasquez is a native of Los Angeles, California. He writes fiction and criticism.

At CrimeReads he tagged six dark titles of fatherhood crime and noir, including:

The Ones You Do, Daniel Woodrell

Speaking of southern-fried, this novel from the reigning king of “country noir” is ostensibly the conclusion to an early trilogy of detective novels, but really, it’s its own beast. Unlike the two novels that preceded it—Under the Bright Lights (1986) and Muscle for the Wing (1988)—this 1992 novel focuses not on Rene Shade, the hardscrabble boxer-turned-detective who traverses the seedy and dangerous river city of St. Bruno, but his ne’er do well father, John X Shade.

A washed-out ladies’ man, pool hustler and bartender, John X. returns to the family and son he abandoned after being himself jilted by his much younger wife, who absconds with a sizeable bundle of cash that belongs to their very dangerous employers. Left holding the bag (but not the money), John X. flees to St. Bruno and attempts to put things to right with his sons. He might have succeeded too, were it not for the diminutive and psychotic hitman that tracks him down, culminating in a touching, but totally unsentimental ending that combines noir’s inherent fatalism and cruel irony with a heavy dose of pathos.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue