I enjoyed the brief conversations sparked by the comments on guilty pleasures, and was a little sad that they tapered off right around the time that the subject got around to film noir and the hard boiled detective genre. Do we have any fans following these areas? Personally I can appreciate Micky Spillane for his contributions to the genre, but have always felt that he was never able to live up to Chandler, Hammett(red harvest is my personal favorite), or even Jim Thompson as a writer. Anyone have any favorite film noir or detective films/books? I recently watched Alphaville and the DVD of Knife in the Water, and think I might have to delve into one of my favorite genres again over the holidays. nathan n.p. Schlippenbach - the living music n.r. the grotesque - patrick mcGrath (recently saw Spider with Ralph Fiennes -thought it wasn't half bad)