for enjoyment

As in film westerns, the western novel has been revived in newer and unconventional ways in recent years. There has been the rise in popularity of the “weird western”: a hybrid genre which blends elements of the traditional western (a lawless frontier, a hero pit against all odds) with those of other types of fiction such as noir, mystery, horror and science-fiction (namely, the alternate Victorian universe known as steampunk).

Films within the noir genre are quite diverse, but have a few things in common: a dark and brooding atmosphere, a cynical protagonist with a complicated past, and plotlines that are fatalistic. Noir fiction has developed alongside these films since the 1930s and 1940s and has the same characteristics. Although classic noir novels by such authors as Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett are detective stories, others are written in the form of psychological thrillers, and horror, western and science-fiction novels.

Books to give you a good scare!