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Hardboiled: An Anthology
of American Crime Stories (1995).
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.
