Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories — Bill Pronzini

Compellingly and compulsively readable, Hardboiled: 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 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" to Ed Gorman's 1992 "The Long Silence After." Other contributors include Evan Hunter (better known as Ed McBain), Paul Cain, Norbert Davis, Jim Thompson, Helen Nielsen, Margaret Maron, Andrew Vachss, Faye Kellerman, and Lawrence Block.Containing many notable rarities, Hardboiled celebrates a genre that has profoundly shaped not only American literature and film, but how we see our heroes and ourselves.