Tag Archives: Queenpin

Crime fiction criminals

By definition, the majority of crime fiction characters are criminals or at least commit illegal and/or immoral acts. But books where the main character is a full-time professional criminal are surprisingly few and far between. Here’s a selection of some of the best.

It’s worth noting that when this post originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Lover website, readers came up with several good additions, including Andrew Vachss’s Burke, Charlie Huston’s Henry Thornton, Lawrence Block’s hitman character Keller and Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley. I had originally thought of including the James Ellroy character Dudley Smith (“Knock, knock, who’s there, Dudley Smith, so reds beware”), but he’s a bent cop so not eligible. However, Ellroy’s Pete Bondurant would definitely make the cut.

Please leave a comment if you can think of any others.

Parker by Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake)

The 24 books written between 1962 and 2010 featuring the professional thief known as Parker remain some of the best crime fiction ever written. Sixteen Parker novels appeared between 1962 and 1974. Westlake took a rest from the character until 1997, then wrote another eight Parker books.

Parker is a career criminal who steals things for a living. Get in his way on a job or try to double cross him afterwards and he’ll hurt you.… Read more

Book review: The End of Everything

EndThe plot of Megan Abbott’s The End of Everything is deceptively simple.

Evie and Lizzie are two 13 year-old girls and best friends, coming of age in a nameless suburb in seventies Middle America. It’s an idyllic setting until the night Evie goes missing and nothing is ever the same.

Has she run away or was she taken? If she was taken was it a child killer or white slavers? The police have nothing to go on as rumours spread like wildfire.

What does Lizzie know? A hell of a lot more than she realises. If only she can piece it all together. All girls have secrets, but this one’s a real doozy that threatens to bring about, literally, the end of everything.

The End of Everything is new territory for Abbott. Her four previous novels, Die A Little, The Song Is You, Bury Me Deep and Queenpin, all of which I’ve read, are set earlier in the last century and give a hard-boiled but uniquely feminine take on the locations and character stereo types of classic noir.

They are all fantastic reads. Abbott’s bigger than Ben Hur in the US and she deserves to be here.

Her jump into the territory of suburban teen angst could have delivered a simple Virgin Suicides-type tale.… Read more