Introduction: the mysterious romance of murder
Paradise of the damned: 17 notes on noir
The great British spymasters
The limits of logic: Trents 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
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)
Three astrological profiles
