NOIRTRASH
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2015
- Posts
- 10,580
You may differ but all below are popular best sellers.
Try the Girl
The big guy wasn't any of my business. He never was, then or later, least of all then. I was over on Central, which is the Harlem of Los Angeles, on one of the "mixed" blocks, where there were still both white and colored establishments. I was looking for a little Greek barber named Tom Aleidis whose wife wanted him to come home and was willing to spend a little money to find him. It was a peaceful job.
Chandler, Raymond. Try the Girl (Kindle Locations 4-8). . Kindle Edition.
CALL FOR THE DEAD
A Brief History of George Smiley
When Lady Ann Sercomb married George Smiley towards the end of the war she described him to her astonished Mayfair friends as breathtakingly ordinary. When she left him two years later in favour of a Cuban motor racing driver, she announced enigmatically that if she hadn’t left him then, she never could have done; and Viscount Sawley made a special journey to his club to observe that the cat was out of the bag. This remark, which enjoyed a brief season as a mot, can only be understood by those who knew Smiley. Short, fat, and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad. Sawley, in fact, declared at the wedding that “Sercomb was mated to a bullfrog in a sou’wester.” And Smiley, unaware of this description, had waddled down the aisle in search of the kiss that would turn him into a Prince. Was he rich or poor, peasant or priest? Where had she got him from? The incongruity of the match was emphasized by Lady Ann’s undoubted beauty, its mystery stimulated by the disproportion between the man and his bride. But gossip must see its characters in black and white, equip them with sins and motives easily conveyed in the shorthand of conversation. And so Smiley, without school, parents, regiment or trade, without wealth or poverty, travelled without labels in the guard’s van of the social express, and soon became lost luggage, destined, when the divorce had come and gone, to remain unclaimed on the dusty shelf of yesterday’s news.
le Carré, John. Call for the Dead: A George Smiley Novel (George Smiley Novels Book 1) (pp. 1-2). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
THE SCORCHED FACE
“We expected them home yesterday,” Alfred Banbrock wound up his story. “When they had not come by this morning, my wife telephoned Mrs. Walden. Mrs. Walden said they had not been down there— had not been expected, in fact.” “On the face of it, then,” I suggested, “it seems that your daughters went away of their own accord, and are staying away on their own accord?” Banbrock nodded gravely. Tired muscles sagged in his fleshy face. “It would seem so,” he agreed. “That is why I came to your agency for help instead of going to the police.” “Have they ever disappeared before?” “No. If you read the papers and magazines, you’ve no doubt seen hints that the younger generation is given to irregularity. My daughters came and went pretty much as they pleased. But, though I can’t say I ever knew what they were up to, we always knew where they were in a general way.” “Can you think of any reason for their going away like this?” He shook his weary head.
Hammett, Dashiell. Who Killed Bob Teal? and Other Stories: Collected Case Files of the Continental Op: The Middle Years, Volume 2 (The Complete Continental Op) (Kindle Locations 1272-1275). MysteriousPress.com/Open Road. Kindle Edition.
THE EXQUISITE CORPSE, Poppy Z.Brite
Sometimes a man grows tired of carrying everything the world heaps upon his head. The shoulders sag, the spine bows cruelly, the muscles tremble with weariness. Hope of relief begins to die. And the man must decide whether to cast off his load or endure it until his neck snaps like a brittle twig in autumn. Such was my situation late in my thirty-third year. Although I deserved everything the world had heaped on— and torments after death far worse than any the world could threaten: the torture of my skeleton, the rape and dismemberment of my immortal soul— though I deserved all that and more, I found that I could no longer bear the weight.
THE HUNTER
When a fresh-faced guy in a Chevy offered him a lift, Parker told him to go to hell. The guy said, “Screw you, buddy,” yanked his Chevy back into the stream of traffic, and roared on down to the tollbooths. Parker spat in the right-hand lane, lit his last cigarette, and walked across the George Washington Bridge. The 8 A.M. traffic went mmmmmm, mmmmmm, all on this side, headed for the city. Over there, lanes and lanes of nobody going to Jersey. Underneath, the same thing. Out in the middle, the bridge trembled and swayed in the wind. It does it all the time, but he'd never noticed it. He'd never walked it before. He felt it shivering under his feet, and he got mad. He threw the used-up butt at the river, spat on a passing hubcap, and strode on. Office women in passing cars looked at him and felt vibrations above their nylons. He was big and shaggy, with flat square shoulders and arms too long in sleeves too short. He wore a gray suit, limp with age and no pressing. His shoes and socks were both black and both holey. The shoes were holey on the bottom, the socks were holey at heel and toe.
Stark, Richard. The Hunter: A Parker Novel (pp. 3-4). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.
Try the Girl
The big guy wasn't any of my business. He never was, then or later, least of all then. I was over on Central, which is the Harlem of Los Angeles, on one of the "mixed" blocks, where there were still both white and colored establishments. I was looking for a little Greek barber named Tom Aleidis whose wife wanted him to come home and was willing to spend a little money to find him. It was a peaceful job.
Chandler, Raymond. Try the Girl (Kindle Locations 4-8). . Kindle Edition.
CALL FOR THE DEAD
A Brief History of George Smiley
When Lady Ann Sercomb married George Smiley towards the end of the war she described him to her astonished Mayfair friends as breathtakingly ordinary. When she left him two years later in favour of a Cuban motor racing driver, she announced enigmatically that if she hadn’t left him then, she never could have done; and Viscount Sawley made a special journey to his club to observe that the cat was out of the bag. This remark, which enjoyed a brief season as a mot, can only be understood by those who knew Smiley. Short, fat, and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad. Sawley, in fact, declared at the wedding that “Sercomb was mated to a bullfrog in a sou’wester.” And Smiley, unaware of this description, had waddled down the aisle in search of the kiss that would turn him into a Prince. Was he rich or poor, peasant or priest? Where had she got him from? The incongruity of the match was emphasized by Lady Ann’s undoubted beauty, its mystery stimulated by the disproportion between the man and his bride. But gossip must see its characters in black and white, equip them with sins and motives easily conveyed in the shorthand of conversation. And so Smiley, without school, parents, regiment or trade, without wealth or poverty, travelled without labels in the guard’s van of the social express, and soon became lost luggage, destined, when the divorce had come and gone, to remain unclaimed on the dusty shelf of yesterday’s news.
le Carré, John. Call for the Dead: A George Smiley Novel (George Smiley Novels Book 1) (pp. 1-2). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
THE SCORCHED FACE
“We expected them home yesterday,” Alfred Banbrock wound up his story. “When they had not come by this morning, my wife telephoned Mrs. Walden. Mrs. Walden said they had not been down there— had not been expected, in fact.” “On the face of it, then,” I suggested, “it seems that your daughters went away of their own accord, and are staying away on their own accord?” Banbrock nodded gravely. Tired muscles sagged in his fleshy face. “It would seem so,” he agreed. “That is why I came to your agency for help instead of going to the police.” “Have they ever disappeared before?” “No. If you read the papers and magazines, you’ve no doubt seen hints that the younger generation is given to irregularity. My daughters came and went pretty much as they pleased. But, though I can’t say I ever knew what they were up to, we always knew where they were in a general way.” “Can you think of any reason for their going away like this?” He shook his weary head.
Hammett, Dashiell. Who Killed Bob Teal? and Other Stories: Collected Case Files of the Continental Op: The Middle Years, Volume 2 (The Complete Continental Op) (Kindle Locations 1272-1275). MysteriousPress.com/Open Road. Kindle Edition.
THE EXQUISITE CORPSE, Poppy Z.Brite
Sometimes a man grows tired of carrying everything the world heaps upon his head. The shoulders sag, the spine bows cruelly, the muscles tremble with weariness. Hope of relief begins to die. And the man must decide whether to cast off his load or endure it until his neck snaps like a brittle twig in autumn. Such was my situation late in my thirty-third year. Although I deserved everything the world had heaped on— and torments after death far worse than any the world could threaten: the torture of my skeleton, the rape and dismemberment of my immortal soul— though I deserved all that and more, I found that I could no longer bear the weight.
THE HUNTER
When a fresh-faced guy in a Chevy offered him a lift, Parker told him to go to hell. The guy said, “Screw you, buddy,” yanked his Chevy back into the stream of traffic, and roared on down to the tollbooths. Parker spat in the right-hand lane, lit his last cigarette, and walked across the George Washington Bridge. The 8 A.M. traffic went mmmmmm, mmmmmm, all on this side, headed for the city. Over there, lanes and lanes of nobody going to Jersey. Underneath, the same thing. Out in the middle, the bridge trembled and swayed in the wind. It does it all the time, but he'd never noticed it. He'd never walked it before. He felt it shivering under his feet, and he got mad. He threw the used-up butt at the river, spat on a passing hubcap, and strode on. Office women in passing cars looked at him and felt vibrations above their nylons. He was big and shaggy, with flat square shoulders and arms too long in sleeves too short. He wore a gray suit, limp with age and no pressing. His shoes and socks were both black and both holey. The shoes were holey on the bottom, the socks were holey at heel and toe.
Stark, Richard. The Hunter: A Parker Novel (pp. 3-4). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.
