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Hardboiled Crime Fiction is a uniquely American style pioneered by Dashiell Hammett , refined by Raymond Chandler , and endlessly imitated since by writers such as Mickey Spillane . Hardboiled fiction is most commonly associated with Detective short stories and novels. It is distinguished by an unsentimental portrayal of Crime , Violence and Sex .

The name comes from a colloquial phrase of understatement. For an egg, being hard-boiled is comparatively ''tough''. The counterpart detective would be stylistically referred to as an " Armchair Detective " and are considered "soft" in contrast because they do not have to deal with the darker themes of deceit and violence in a direct manner. A classic example might be Hercule Poirot .

Noir fiction, on the other hand, is a narrower--though ever expanding--sub-genre of hardboiled fiction. According to George Tuttle : "Noir fiction, in America, can be defined as a sub-genre of the Hardboiled School. In this sub-genre, the protagonist is usually not a detective, but instead either a victim, a suspect, or a perpetrator. He is someone tied directly to the crime, not an outsider called to solve or fix the situation. Other common characteristics of this sub-genre are the emphasis on sexual relationships and the use of sex to advance the plot and the self-destructive qualities of the lead characters. This type of fiction also has the lean, direct writing style and the gritty realism commonly associated with hardboiled fiction."


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