Introduction: the mysterious romance of murder

Cracking wise

Paradise of the damned: eighteen notes on noir

Poetry noir

Five noir poems

Heres to crime!

The last cigarette

Among my souvenirs

The great British spymasters

The limits of logic: Trent's last case (E. C. Bentley)

Dashiell Hammett's priceless patter

Paperclip (Raymond Chandler)

"Grim grin" (Graham Greene)

Rex Stout: the emperor of Couronne de Canard

Ida Lupino: the first lady of noir

Black Friday (David Goodis)

Orange noir (Charles Willeford)

Ed McBain: the man from Isola

Hitchcock's America

Straight down the line: Billy Wilder's Double indemnity (1944)

Strangers and mirrors: Orson Welles's The stranger (1946) and The lady from Shanghai (1947)

An exchange of bullets in Belfast: Carol Reed's Odd man out (1947)

Blind accidents: John Huston's The asphalt jungle (1950)

Epitaph for a genre: Stanley Kubrick's The killing (1956)

Shadow of evil: Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear (1962)

A reluctant spy's conversion: William Holden in The counterfeit traitor (1962)

Gangsters in love: Sergio Leone's Once upon a time in America (1984)

Rogues' gallery

Why not New York?

Three astrological profiles.