My Bookshelf: “The Great American Detective”

My Bookshelf The Great American Detective: 15 Stories Starring America's Celebrated Private Eyes Edited by William Kittridedge & Steven M. Krauzer Possibly the very first anthology of crime fiction I ever bought, probably at the downtown Coles or Classics on my long way home from Dawson in the East End to the South Shore. Reading … Continue reading My Bookshelf: “The Great American Detective”

My Bookshelf: “The Graphic Canon of Crime & Mystery”

My Bookshelf The Graphic Canon of Crime & Mystery, Volumes One and Two Edited by Russ Kick Created and curated by activist, journalist, writer, editor, muckraker and comics buff Russ Kick, this ambitious anthology series by Seven Stories Press which kicked off in 2017 with The Graphic Canon of Crime and Mystery, Volume One: From Sherlock Holmes … Continue reading My Bookshelf: “The Graphic Canon of Crime & Mystery”

My Bookshelf: Noir: A Crime Comics Collection

My Bookshelf Noir:  A Crime Comics Collection One of the few collections of crime comics ever released, 2009's Noir:  A Crime Comics Collection must have caused at least some ripples because, despite being black & white and the skimpiness of original paperback edition's size, it was brought it back in a full comics-size hardcover version in … Continue reading My Bookshelf: Noir: A Crime Comics Collection

My Bookshelf: The Hard-Boiled Detective: Stories from Black Mask Magazine

My Bookshelf The Hard-Boiled Detective: Stories from Black Mask Magazine, edited  by Herbert Ruhm Almost forgotten now, but the publication of The Hard-Boiled Detective: Stories from Black Mask Magazine (1977), edited  by Herbert Ruhm, must have sent pulp fans into a tizzy in the seventies. It was the first real anthology dedicated exclusively to Black Mask since … Continue reading My Bookshelf: The Hard-Boiled Detective: Stories from Black Mask Magazine

Pursuit

Television Anthology Series PURSUIT was a short-lived American television anthology series from CBS, focussing on crime and suspense stories about people being  pursued by others. The airwaves at the time were crowded with similar shows, such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Suspicion or Kraft Mystery Theatre, and Pursuit didn't stay around for too long, only airing twelve episodes. … Continue reading Pursuit

My Bookshelf: Four-&-Twenty Bloodhounds, edited by Anthony Boucher

My Bookshelf  Four-&-Twenty Bloodhounds, edited and with introductions by Anthony Boucher   This early anthology (1950) from the Mystery Writers of America may have seemed to be just the usual grab bag of stories from all across the genre, and indeed the cover of the original hard cover edition promised short stories "of fictional detectives... … Continue reading My Bookshelf: Four-&-Twenty Bloodhounds, edited by Anthony Boucher

Murder in the Library: The Mystery Writers of America Anthologies

Everybody into the Boat! Okay, nobody's ever going to mistake The Mystery Writers of America (MWA) for The Private Eye Writers of America (PWA), but private eye writers have played a major role in the MWA right from the beginning Brett Halliday and Baynard Kendrick were both involved in the founding of the organization back in … Continue reading Murder in the Library: The Mystery Writers of America Anthologies

Suspicion

Television Anthology Series Suspicion was a short-lived American television anthology series from NBC that only lasted one season, and focussed mostly (but not exclusively) on murder and mystery stories, with many of the episodes filmed live. The executive producer of ten of the filmed episodes was film director Alfred Hitchcock, and he even directed the … Continue reading Suspicion

My Bookshelf: The Hardboiled Dicks

My Bookshelf The Hardboiled Dicks, edited by Ron Goulart An absolute essential for anyone who loves this stuff, Ron Goulart's 1965 The Hardboiled Dicks (my 1967 paperback reprint is the one pictured above) was one of the first collections of hard-boiled detective fiction from the thirties and forties crime and detective pulps, preceded by only … Continue reading My Bookshelf: The Hardboiled Dicks

My Bookshelf: The Hard-Boiled Omnibus by Joseph T. “Cap” Shaw

My Bookshelf The Hard-Boiled Omnibus: Early Stories from Black Mask, edited by Joseph T. "Cap" Shaw   Is there a more pivotal collection of stories from Black Mask than The Hard-Boiled Omnibus? Published by Simon and Schuster in 1946, this almost mythical hardcover featured fifteen stories selected by editor  Joseph T. "Cap" Shaw (1874-1952), who had … Continue reading My Bookshelf: The Hard-Boiled Omnibus by Joseph T. “Cap” Shaw