James Crumley is the author of the C.W. Sughrue and Milo Milodragovitch series of crime novels. He won the 1994 Dashiell Hammett award for his novel The Mexican Tree Duck. His second book, The Last Good Kiss, begins with one of the best first sentences in crime fiction:

“When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonora, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.”