Tuesday, December 01, 2015

Yet Another List I'm Not On

Top 10: the best dialogue in crime fiction

3 comments:

Deb said...

Any Raymond Chandler novel is full of incredible dialog--and Marlowe's internal monologue is also wonder, as in The Big Sleep where he sees a painting of a naked woman, "with some very long and convenient hair."

And I agree that Christie doesn't get enough credit for how good get dialog is especially for what it reveals about the character speaking.

Don Coffin said...

"I pretend work, they pretend pay me."

This is, actually, a joke--a dangerous joke--from the old Soviet Union: "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us."

And the dialogue in Len Deighton's books is generally fantastic (it's the one thing he definitely does better than John Le Carre).

SteveHL said...

I would include K. C. Constantine and George Pelecanos.