Real Cool Killers

Real Cool Killers TERRY TEACHOUT HE Library of America, a non- profit publisher whose dust jack-

ets declare it to be “dedicated to preserving America’s best and most sig- nificant writing in handsome, enduring volumes,” has brought out a pair of vol- umes containing 1] examples of what has lately come to be called “noir fic- Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s & *40s, edited by Robert Polito (Library of America, 990 pp., $35) Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s, edited by Robert Polito (Li- brary of America, 892 pp., $35) tion,” after the cinematic genre of the Forties known as film nor. No such fancy name was applied to these short novels when they first appeared in paperback, bedecked with cheesy cover art and tumescent blurbs promising their semi-literate purchasers the cheap- est’ Of thrills. Forty years ago, Jim