Sorry to get a late start this month -- we're already two days into March as I write this -- especially when the topic I thought it would be fun to talk about this month is getting an early start.
Specifically, what writers who later became greats wrote first novels that already showed how great they'd be? (And conversely, which ones didn't?)
This topic came to mind because this month Hard Case Crime is publishing THE CUTIE by Donald E. Westlake, which is the first novel the late MWA Grand Master ever published under his own name. (He'd done some pseudonymous softcore sex novels before that, but nothing serious, and nothing under his real name.) THE CUTIE first appeared under the title THE MERCENARIES (though Don wrote it as THE CUTIE and was excited to see us bringing it out under the title he originally meant for the book to have), and in my opinion THE CUTIE is one of the best books he ever wrote. You can certainly see how amazing a writer he'd become in this first novel -- and clearly the judges for the Edgar Award agreed back in 1961, since they nominated it for Best First Novel. (Though another book won. Boo! Hiss!)
I feel similarly about GRIFTER'S GAME by Lawrence Block, which was the first book *that* Grand Master published under his own name. And of course THE BIG SLEEP was Chandler's debut.
On the other hand, I don't know that anyone would say that any of Ross Macdonald's pre-Lew Archer books showed the enormous power his writing would later have, or even that the first of the Archer books did. It took several for him to hit his stride. Similarly, a Rex Stout-loving friend of mine recently asserted over lunch that he doesn't love the Nero Wolfe books until around book 6 or 7, when he feels Stout "found his voice."
So...topic for discussion: Which first novels by crime writers were staggering debuts that heralded the arrival of a major new figure in the genre? And from which ones would you never have guessed just how good the author would later become?
--Charles
