Film noir is a popular genre of the post-war era (and later saw a resurgence in the ’70s and ’90s) that examined the corrupt immorality within America’s hallowed institutions. While cinema heightened the genre’s dark tone through moody black-and-white photography, the dark themes of moral destruction were first explored in popular literature — particularly in dime-store pulp magazines in the early twentieth century. Noir fiction is typically linked with hard-boiled detective novels, but the two designations have a lot in common beyond the gruff, brutal subject matter: Throughout these 10 crime novels, our heroes are also flawed, morally corrupt, or immune to grace, and their authors hold a mirror to the unscrupulous society in which those characters reflect.
For access to exclusive gear videos, celebrity interviews, and more, subscribe on YouTube!
