If you don't know what a cigarette feels like, you probably don't read private-eye novels.

That is because private-eye novels are often written by persons who write like cigarettes.

I write private-eye novels.

THE authors of these private-eye novels and police procedurals aren't just dredging the terrain for local color, either.

As private-eye novels go, there is much to admire in "Natural Prey."

There they were, the girls who made you love them and then disappeared, turning up like the bad-penny dames in private-eye novels.

Nor is it like his private-eye novel, "Who Is Teddy Villanova?"

"This extra dimension adds an immediacy to 'Burn Marks' that is not found in many private-eye novels."

Reading Loren Estleman and some of his near-peers makes you appreciate the expertise that goes into the private-eye novel.

The Samson stories are told in the breezy first-person narrative form typical of private-eye novels.