East Baton Rouge Parish Library

Hard-boiled, an anthology of American crime stories, edited by Bill Pronzini, Jack Adrian

eng

no index present

fiction

Hard-boiled

31514858

edited by Bill Pronzini, Jack Adrian

an anthology of American crime stories

Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories is the largest and most comprehensive collection of its kind, with over half of the stories never published before in book form. Included are thirty-six sublimely suspenseful stories that chronicle the evolution of this quintessentially American art form, from its earliest beginnings during the Golden Age of the legendary pulp magazine Black Mask in the 1920s, to the arrival of the tough digest Manhunt in the 1950s, and finally leading up to present-day hard-boiled stories by such writers as James Ellroy. Here are eight decades worth of the best writing about betrayal, murder, and mayhem: from Hammett's 1925 tour de force "The Scorched Face," in which the disappearance of two sisters leads Hammett's never-named detective, the Continental Op, straight into a web of sexual blackmail amidst the West Coast elite, to Ed Gorman's 1992 "The Long Silence After," a gripping and powerful rendezvous involving a middle class insurance executive, a Chicago streetwalker, and a loaded .38. Other delectable contributions include "Brush Fire" by James M. Cain, author of The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raymond Chandler's "I'll Be Waiting," where, for once, the femme fatale is not blond but a redhead, a Ross Macdonald mystery starring Macdonald's most famous creation, the cryptic Lew Archer, and "The Screen Test of Mike Hammer" by the one and only Micky Spillane.

The scorched face / Dashiell Hammett -- Round trip / W.R. Burnett -- Mistral / Raoul Whitfield -- Backwash / Frederick Nebel -- Trouble-chaser / Paul Cain -- Fruit tramp / Daniel Mainwaring -- Brush fire / James M. Cain -- Human interest stuff / Brett Halliday -- Waiting for Rusty / William Cole -- I'll be waiting / Raymond Chandler -- Marijuana and a pistol / Chester Himes -- Who said I was dead / Norbert Davis -- Nor iron bars / John D. MacDonald -- Dock walloper / Benjamin Appel -- Three-ten to Yuma / Elmore Leonard -- The bobby-soxer / Jonathan Craig -- Black pudding / David Goodis -- Guilt-edged blonde / Ross Macdonald -- Mama's boy / David Alexander -- The screen test of Mike Hammer / Mickey Spillane -- Home / Gil Brewer -- So pale, so cold, so fair / Leigh Brackett -- A piece of ground / Helen Nielsen -- The merry, merry Christmas / Evan Hunter -- Forever after / Jim Thompson -- The old pro / H.A. DeRosso -- The Saturday night deaths / Michael Kerr -- Graveyard shift / James M. Reasoner -- Deadhead coming down / Margaret Maron -- To Florida / Robert Sampson -- It's a hard world / Andrew Vachss -- Junior Jackson's parable / James Hannah -- Bonding / Faye Kellerman -- Gravy train / James Ellroy -- Batman's helpers / Lawrence Block -- The long silence after / Ed Gorman

Hardboiled