James Crumley

Crime novelist James Crumley's detective tales were filled with sex, drugs, violence and profanity, and inspired comparisons to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, among others. Crumley died Sept. 17 in Missoula, Mont. He was 68.

Detective novelist James Crumley. It's been ten years since his last book. In Crumley's fourth novel, "The Mexican Tree Duck" (Mysterious Press), redneck detective C.W. Sughrue (pronounced Shoog-rue) returns. Crumley gets a lot of materials for his novels hanging out in bars in his hometown of Missoula, Montana. Crumley has written three other detective novels.

James Crumley's increasingly popular mystery novels feature the detective Milo Milodragovitch, who is as flawed as the criminals he pursues. Unlike the urban settings of classic hard-boiled fiction, his books take place in Montana.