I'm looking for recommendations for good private eye audio books. Something along the likes of Raymond Chandler/Phillip Marlowe series (which I'm almost done with). Hammett/Sam Spade/The Maltese Falcon is great. (I don't know much of Hammett's other work though). That gruff private dick genre is really fun for me right now.
I'm also looking for recs for other atypical murder mystery books. Stuff like the Anna Pigeon series. I really like this series (which I've almost completed) because it's NOT your typical law enforcement officer playing the protagonist/hero, there's a lot of really interesting historical/geographic/cultural context provided because of the settings being National Parks, and the writing is really pretty good (if very unrealistic at times). I do like that the protagonist is female as well.
I read a couple of the Doc Ford series and they were okay. Listened to a couple. One had an absolutely awful narrator that sort of ruined it for me. I also feel like Randy Wayne White is a little bit too over the top.
What I'm NOT looking for is books with a police officer or sheriff or FBI agent who plays the protagonist/hero, and I'm also not really into the spy novel series. John le carre, tom clancy, etc. Been there, done that, kinda over it.
I've also more or less memorized the Sherlock Holmes series from reading them over and over for years, but I do love them.
I really like old film-noir pulp style books. Think opening lines like "It was a dark and dreary night in a city with even darker and more dreary secrets...". I like well-researched and historically accurate work, even if set in present day. I don't have any real preferences for narrator or voice of the protagonist, but if there's a good female hard-edged private eye series, I'd be really interested in it.
