From Elmore Leonard to Cormac McCarthy, noir fiction and its cinematic spin-offs have seldom been as popular as today, prompting a small army of cultural commentators to seek explanations for the genre’s success. Is it the clear-cut gender roles we crave? Maybe the appeal can be found in its rough-and-ready codes of honour and revenge, fictional comforts in an era of less black-and-white values? Or perhaps noir holds up a mirror to a culture of barely restrained individualism?

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