Where Nordic noir is known for its gritty crime and dark subject matter amid bleak, cold, and gray landscapes, sunshine noir features those same gritty crimes and dark subjects, only in the blistering heat and sweltering humidity. It also, in the vein of traditional noir, features a protagonist with a troubled past that comes back to haunt them. Many noir novels are set from the point of view of a detective or officer or investigator trying to solve the crime, but not all. There’s a bit of discrepancy in who originally coined the term “sunshine noir,” depending on whether you’re talking to film buffs, authors, editors, or anyone in between. But after the rise of Nordic crime, particularly the popularity of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the surge in specific crime genre was hard to ignore, and more books with a pointed nod toward sunshine noir began to emerge. And while sunshine noir has a semi-happy-sounding name, it is, in some cases, even more sinister than its snowy counterparts. After all, when the heat rises, tensions do too, which makes for an incredible backdrop for characters to begin resenting one another and for anger to overpower all logic. Think Outer Banks meets Veronica Mars: hazy and shady dealings under the guise of the summer sun and enjoyable landscape that is anything but.
6 Sunshine Noir Books
If you’re looking for even more great noir recommendations, check out this list of 100 must-read works of noir, a list of Southern noir books, or these noirs by women.
