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    The 20 essential L.A. crime books

    by Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times Oct 23, 2019 6 minutes

    In the spirit of exploring crime novels set in and around Los Angeles, a city where noir is instinctive and eerily resplendent, here are 20 essential books that rouse the darker angels of the metropolis.

    The stories vary in tone, style and subject. But the canon, which includes two nonfiction books, is a starting point for a conversation on crime writing and how it has informed a city driven by myth, desire and the cruel realities between.

    The collection was compiled with help from writers, readers, critics and local booksellers. Some names are familiar, some not so, but the books have left a mark, a fingerprint, if you will, on a genre that since Raymond Chandler has become distinctive and at times revelatory.

    Here's the list in no particular order. Argue, replace, add at will:

    "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler. A classic mystery of blackmail and murder, this novel gave the world Philip Marlowe, the hard-boiled, quick-witted, proud, ever-suspicious private eye. Marlowe, enshrined in film by Humphrey

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