Introduction: the mysterious romance of murder -- Cracking wise -- Paradise of the damned: eighteen notes on noir -- Poetry noir -- Five noir poems -- Heres to crime! -- The last cigarette -- Among my souvenirs -- The great British spymasters -- The limits of logic: Trent's 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 -- Hitchcock's America -- 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) -- Rogues' gallery -- Why not New York? -- Three astrological profiles.