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The Best American Noir
Of The Century (2011).
Edited by James Ellroy
and Otto Penzler.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 0547577443
ISBN-13: 978-0547577449
Back cover description:
“Well worth its
impressive weight in gold, it would be a crime not to have this seminal
masterpiece in your collection.” – New York Journal of Books.
In his introduction to The
Best American Noir of the Century, James Ellroy writes, “Noir is the most
scrutinized offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction… It’s the nightmare
of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time
sure thing that goes bad.” Offering the best examples of literary sure things
gone bad, this collection ensures that nowhere else can readers find a darker,
more thorough distillation of American noir fiction.
James Ellroy and Otto
Penzler mined the past century to find this treasure trove of thirty-nine
stories, with selections from James M. Cain, Mickey Spillane, Elmore Leonard,
Patricia Highsmith, Harlan Ellison, Jeffrey Deaver, Joyce Carol Oates, Dennis
Lahane, and many more.
“Delightfully devilish .
. . A strange trek through the years that includes stories from household names
in the hard-boiled genre to lesser-known authors who nonetheless can hold their
own with the legends.” – Associated Press.
James Ellroy is the
author of the Underworld U.S.A. trilogy – American Tabloid, The Cold
Six Thousand, and Blood’s a Rover – and the L.A. Quartet novels, The
Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White
Jazz. His most recent book is The Hillicker Curse, a memoir.
Otto Penzler is the
founder of the Mysterious Bookshop and Mysterious Press, has won two Edgar
Allan Poe Awards (most recently for The Lineup), and is series editor of
The Best American Mystery Stories.
Contents:
Foreword
by Otto Penzler; Introduction by James Ellroy; Spurs, by Tod Robbins; Pastorale,
by James M. Cain; You'll always remember me, by Steve Fisher; Gun crazy, by MacKinlay
Kantor; Nothing to worry about, by Day Keene; The homecoming, by Dorothy B.
Hughes; Man in the dark, by Howard Browne; The lady says die!, by Mickey
Spillane; Professional man, by David Goodis; The hunger, by Charles Beaumont; The
gesture, by Gil Brewer; The last spin, by Evan Hunter; Forever after, by Jim
Thompson; For the rest of her life, by Cornell Woolrich; The dripping, by David
Morrell; Slowly, slowly in the wind, by Patricia Highsmith; Iris, by Stephen
Greenleaf; A ticket out, by Brendan DuBois; Since I don't have you, by James
Ellroy; Texas city, by James Lee Burke; Mefisto in onyx, by Harlan Ellison; Out
there in the darkness, by Ed Gorman; Hot spings, by James Crumley; The
weekender, by Jeffery Deaver; Faithless, by Joyce Carol Oates; Poachers, by Tom
Franklin; Like a bone in the throat, by Lawrence Block; Crack, by James W. Hall;
Running out of dog, by Dennis Lehane; The paperhanger, by William Gay; Midnight
emissions, by F.X. Toole; When the women come out to dance, by Elmore Leonard; Controlled
burn, by Scott Wolven; All through the house, by Christopher Coake; What she
offered, by Thomas H. Cook; Her lord and master, by Andrew Klavan; Stab, by Chris
Adrian; The hoarder, by Bradford Morrow; Missing the morning bus, by Lorenzo
Carcaterra.
