Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories ANNOTATION
The largest and most comprehensive collection of its kind, with over half of the stories never published before in book form. Included are 36 sublimely suspenseful stories that chronicle the evolution of this quintessential American art form--70 years of detective fiction collected in a page-turner no mystery lover will want to miss.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
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.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Prolific anthologist and mystery writer Pronzini (the Nameless Detective series) and Adrian (Detective Stories for the Strand) have compiled a superb anthology of gritty crime fiction. Grouped by decade, from the 1920s to the '90s, the stories sample some of the best crime writers, many of whom cut their teeth on pulp, including Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald, Mickey Spillane, James M. Cain, Elmore Leonard, Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain), James Ellroy, Andrew Vachss and Lawrence Block. Some of the older tales, like Hammett's plot-heavy, trick-ending ``The Scorched Face,'' haven't aged well. Others, like Macdonald's ``Guilt-Edged Blonde,'' a Lew Archer story, and Leonard's ``3:10 to Yuma,'' a taut tale of a marshal escorting a convicted robber to prison, still impress in this account of the evolution of an American popular art form. (June)
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