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• Cape Greed by Sam Cole
  The first in a proposed series, a noirish sliver shoved under the fingernails of western readers’ expectations and slaps us across the face with the ground zero reality of post-Apartheid Cape Town and the growing pains of a nation in flux. Disillusioned and demoralized, cops Vincent Saldona and “Mullet” Mendes figure it’s time to get out and go private, now that even the “scum” have human rights and the streets are getting more dangerous than ever. The plan is to make some dough while avoiding “the gun stuff." But recent widower Vince is a barely functioning alcoholic, and beach bum Mullet supplements their income by dealing a little pot, so they’re not exactly picky about their clients... A potent and nasty brew, with surprising heart.
  
  
• The Finger's Twist by Lee Lamothe
  Squeezed out in the last days of 2009 and only sporadically and belatedly released in the U.S. in 2010, this edgy, unusual thriller by Canadian journalist Lee Lamothe has already come and gone, criminally neglected except by a few enthusiastic critics. It’s enough to break your heart. A politically charged, hard-boiled detective novel that stretches the genre while also paying tribute to it, introducing a deliciously damaged odd couple of Charlie Tate, a failed journalist turned muscle-bound biker and Elodie Gray, a wealthy, wheelchair-bound 75-pound "bone sack" alcoholic from the good side of town who just happens to be a world-class hacker and computer whiz.
  
  
• The Republic of Doyle
  The best P.I. show on the tube? For lovers of classic, character-driven 70s P.I. fare who are finding little retro-solace in the current TV schedule, this Canadian import just might be the ticket. Although wind-blown, rock-bound St. John’s, Newfoundland is about as far from the sunny southern California stomping grounds of Mannix, Rockford and Harry O as you can get without leaving the continent, there’s a definite and deliberate seventies vibe to the semi-comic doings of the mismatched father-and-son private eye team of Jake and Malachy Doyle, and their extended family of ex-wives, runaway nieces, long lost brothers, alcoholic lawyers, barflies and law enforcement girlfriends. Less concerned with its hipness factor than plain old storytelling, this CBC production concentrates on – get this! – detectives solving cases. No visitors from beyond the pale, no psychic baloney, no CSI voodoo, no angsty burned spies in designer duds, no OC cases, no human lie detectors – just two human beings who get hired to solve cases. I told you it was retro.

• Amos Walker by Loren D. Estleman
  Not so much a discovery as a rediscovery -- I'd almost forgotten how much I love this guy. In the last year, I've managed to catch up with a long-time favourite: Estleman's Motor City gumshoe Walker, just in time for his thirtieth anniversary (the first Walker novel appeared way back in 1980). To celebrate, Estleman's just dropped his twentieth Walker novel, The Left-Handed Dollar and the career-spanning Amos Walker: The Complete Story Collection -- both highly recommended. Nobody, but nobody, sums up the spirit of the classic American hard-boiled dick -- the good, the bad and the ugly -- the way Walker does. Hell, yes, he's about as retro as you can get, but in all the good ways, like those American-made, gas-guzzling hunks of Detroit tin he drives, Walker is an American classic. He works cases, he drinks rotgut, drives the cops crazy, gets slugged with alarming frequency ("If it weren't for concussions I wouldn't get any sleep at all.") and doesn't give a damn about political correctness. But he's a stand-up guy -- sometimes to a fault -- and Estleman's one of the few P.I. writers who really understands how to crack wise. His zings sting... and soar. When Walker hits the mean streets of Detroit, it's a tour of duty readers won't soon forget. A heart-felt tip of the fedora.
  
  
• Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane
  Okay, I was wrong. For years I told people I didn’t “get” Lehane. Too wordy, too self-consciously “serious” to be taken seriously, too prone to padding out what other writers did with half the page count. But then actor turned fledgling director Ben Affleck cut away the fat, boiled the story down to its essence and gave us a film that ranked right up there with Huston’s The Maltese Falcon and Polanski’s Chinatown. And now, in the wake of the film’s success, Lehane has dragged series characters Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro back for a follow-up. Sure, the swamp of moral, ethical and legal questions that once flooded his work still lap at its edges, but Lehane more easily keeps those troublesome waters at bay this time, delivering a provocative, mature, emotionally charged and, yes, thrilling read that rubs our face in the broken glass of easy answers. Mea culpa, Dennis.
  
  
• Tumor by Joshua Hale Fialkov
  Newcomer Fialkov’s graphic novel is one of the most haunting, emotionally charged private eye novels of the last few years, ranking right up there with the likes of savvy old pros like Lawrence Block, Thomas Cook and James Lee Burke.  Elderly Los Angeles private detective Frank Armstrong is semi-retired, and definitely on his last go-round, trying to make up for a lifetime of regret and guilt before the inoperable brain tumor he's carrying around wipes his slate clean for good. A surprisingly effective and mature tale; a nightmare captured unapologetically and unforgettably in words and art; a deft and precarious balance between heartbreak and hard-boiled action that teeters deliciously on the edge of noir, before finally, gloriously giving in.
  
  
• The Good Wife's Kalinda Sharma
  No, CBS' The Good Wife is not a private eye show. It’s really more of a legal thriller.  Created by husband-and-wife writing team Michelle and Robert King, it stars Julianna Margulies (formerly of ER) as Alicia, rookie lawyer and beleaguered wife of Peter Florric, a disgraced state's attorney (Chris Noth). It’s all very noble and inspiring and sharply written, timely and provocative, placing demands on an adult audience that isn’t afraid to be occasionally shaken. Perfect bait for critics and awards, but the real hook for me is the law firm's staff investigator Kalinda Sharma, the firm’s savvy, leather wrapped private investigator. For my money, she 's not just the most interesting character on the show – she’s the best private eye on the tube these days, a real throwback to the genre's hard-boiled roots, Hammett-cold and Race Williams-tough.

• The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories
  Once you get past the ridiculous title, you're met with arguably the greatest collection of hard-boiled pulp stories ever. Edited by Otto Penzler, it deals out a winning hand of over 50 hard-boiled stories and even complete novels by some of the greatest pulp writers to ever pound a typewriter, including Dashiell Hammett (whose "The Maltese Falcon" appears in the original – and much-different --serialized version), Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gardner. Also included are hard-to-find treasures from Raoul Whitfield, John D. MacDonald, Frederick Nebel, Lester Dent, Norbert Davis, Cornell Woolrich, Carroll John Daly, Paul Cain, Steve Fisher, James M. Cain and Horace McCoy. With prose as tough as a two-buck steak and gritty as a sandpaper massage, this is where your hard-boiled education begins.
  
  
• Working on This Site Again
  If you'll allow me a rare bit of mawkish sentimentality here, I've got to admit that working on this site again after a too-long unintentional hiatus, adding a This Just In section and a Quote of the Week and tweeting regularly, has been a sheer blast. I feel involved again, catching up with old friends I've neglected too long -- and making a surprising number of new ones! I'm even getting excited about writing my own fiction once again. God, it's good to be back.
  
  

And Some of the Things
I'm Looking Forward to in 2011

• The return of Out of the Past
  New episodes of the popular film noir podcast will return in Summer 2011.
  
  
• The Last Spenser
  Sixkill, scheduled for May publication, will be the last Spenser novel by Robert B. Parker. Or is it? Rumours of an untitled "Spenser Christmas Novel" keep showing up...
  
  
• Steranko's Red Tide Finally Re-Released
  Steranko's 1976 classic P.I. graphic novel (aka "Chandler") is finally being released in january. Or at least that was the plan. I just checked on amazon, and it looks like it's been withdrawn again. WTF???

List compiled by Kevin Burton Smith.