Recommended reading - Hardboiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (1995):

Hardboiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (1995).
Edited by Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian.

Description:

Compellingly and compulsively readable, Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories is a page-turner no mystery lover will want to be without. Included are thirty-six superbly 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 1930s, 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," to Ed Gorman's 1992 "The Long Silence After," Other contributors include Evan Hunter (better known as Ed McBain), Jim Thompson, Helen Nielsen, Margaret Maron, Andrew Vachss, Faye Kellerman, and Lawrence Block. Containing many notable rarities, Hard-Boiled celebrates a genre that has profoundly shaped not only American Literature and film, but how we see our heroes and ourselves.