

Poets who wrote crime or detective novels:
Kenneth Fearing
Dorothy B. Hughes
Jack Spicer
Richard Hugo
R.V. Cassill
D.K Markham
C. Day Lewis
David Markson
Without a doubt, Fearing and Hughes were adept at both poetry and crime fiction. Spicer and Hugo's detective novels weren't bad, but more like pastiche, and hardly up to the quality of their poety. On the other hand, Jim Thompson and Raymond Chandler also wrote poetry, but not up to the standard of their fiction. Then, of course, there's Poe and I suppose one could even add Robert Bolano. Are there other poets/crime writers that I'm forgetting? I was put in mind of the above while reading Kevin Killian presents Jack Spicer on Dennis Cooper's blogsite, an excellent overview of Spicer by his biographer. http://www.facebook.com/facebook-widgets/share.php