>>25361900
I think the only one I've read is the Maltese Falcon, so that one.

>>25361900
Holmes is good.
Tried Chesterton and did not like him.
Christie is alright.
The Big Sleep was pretty good. Not anywhere near as cliche as the noire genre reputation gives him. I think I might check out Chandler's other works

>>25361900
Lew Archer
>(1940s-1970s) set in California, it’s very similar to Philip Marlowe but better plotted.
Maigret
>(1930-1970s) set in France. It’s about a police detective. These are very short and there are 80 of them or so. Highly recommended.
SPQR
>(late Republican Rome)
Senator unravels murders and conspiracies as his beloved republic dies around him. Very unique with lots of historical detail. There’s one book where a seething tribune of the plebs dresses up in ritual garb and screams a curse at a consul and all of Rome freaks out over it. The senator has to take part in a cleansing ritual where he and other carry animal sacrifices in a circle around Rome 7 times and then he’s sent out to find whoever gave the tribune those ancient forbidden words he used in the curse.

>>25361900
What in heaven's name is that cover art?

>>25362877
>”you did it, Marlowe, you’ve beaten me”, said the winged penis wearing a tophat.“
>”take good care of the bloody handed god. Don’t let him play with his nipples too much, they’ll chafe. But enough of this long goodbye, I must now take my big sleep”.

>>25361900
The Sherlock Holmes stories, obviously. The Jeremy Brett adaptations are really good if you hate reading. The Stephen Fry audiobooks are also very good.

Christie's Poirot has several classics. I would advise against reading Orient Express early though, since that's kind of an anti-Poirot case that blows up her own tropes. Death on the Nile is better but not the best (popular more because it looks good on film I think). The "boring" ones like the ABC Murders and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd are much better at showing Poirot's deductions.

The Big Sleep was solid, but I'm sure everyone knows about it. For more hardboiled stuff I'd check out the Mike Hammer series by Spillane. It feels a lot more "modern" than contemporary stuff, since Hammer is an uncompromising violent bastard that is closer to the revival/vigilante stuff from the 70s and 80s. On that note, one of those revivalists is pretty good. Try Vacchs' Strega for some 80s grime and pedo murdering.

A more recent one I read was Five Decembers set around WWII in the Pacific, but it's not so much hardboiled as it is a period piece with detective accoutrements.

If you like the period piece historical novel as much as detecting things, try Carr's The Alienist, which is set in NYC in 1896 and features a lot of highlights from the very start of psychology and forensics. Some of it is interesting because it's the foundation of what becomes normal in analyzing crime, and some of it is intriguing because it's what we now think of as pseudoscience. The luminaries of trying to understand crime were also heavily involved in the eugenics movement (even though that's not a plot point here, they are referenced).

The Postman Always Rings Twice is excellent. It's /not/ detective noir, but it strikes the noir bell true being about sex and crime and general tragedy. Also a very short read, no reason not to try it.

i was gonna say this isn't really my genre but I've read quite a bit I guess.

>>25363008
>A more recent one I read was Five Decembers set around WWII in the Pacific, but it's not so much hardboiled as it is a period piece with detective accoutrements.
I really wanted to like this one but couldn’t even finish it. It tries to do too much and ends up not really doing anything.
It wants to be a love story, but we barely get any scenes with the love interests (maybe two good scenes with the first one and one with the second). It wants to be a detective story but the investigation grinds to a halt for over half the story. It wants to be a tragedy of war story but those bits fell flat for me as well.

>>25363171
I actually sorta agree even though I think it was a decent read. I suppose that stretching of the genres just sat better with me. There’s also little happening in the genre so it stands out more for a recent pick.
I like Vachss but he does the same shtick for 18 books or something. Someone like Elmore Leonard is better because he switched it up more (many stand-alones or miniseries of 3-5 books). But he doesn’t have too many “detective” books, they’re more general crime. I guess Labrava counts. The Raylan stories blew up with the TV show but I’d sooner rec Get Shorty, which is him being fed up with Hollywood. Also his books are genuinely funny.

>>25362963
Holy kek