Book excerpt: Neon Noir, the follow-up to Woody Haut's highly regarded Pulp Culture, brings the story of American crime fiction and film uptodate. From the Kennedy assassination to the Vietnam War and Watergate, through Reaganomics to Irangate and Whitewater, Neon Noir is a roller-coaster ride through the American nightmare. Haut investigates the dark side of America through the work of crime writers such as James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosley, James Lee Burke, Lawrence Block, James Sallis, George Pelecanos, Charles Willeford, Jerome Charyn, Sara Paretsky, Vicki Hendricks, KC Constantine, George V Higgins and James Crumley. Mapping the fissures and scars of America's psychogeography, its morally ambiguous shadowlands, Neon Noir also considers the difference between past and present hardboilers, the impact of war and journalism on noirists, the portrayal of cities, the aesthetics of crime fiction, and the changing relationship between the books and the films. Like Pulp Culture, Neon Noir is set to become the reference book on its subject.