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
Tag: Black Mask
Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gardner (The Black Mask Boys)
Created by William F. Nolan Pseudonyms include Frank Anmar, F. E. Edwards & Warren Kastel (1928-2021) "All that talent -- and all that booze. A bad combination." -- Dashiell Hammett in The Black Mask MurdersTalk about resting in pieces. Of course, William F. Nolan didn't "create" Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, or Erle Stanley Gardner. They … Continue reading Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gardner (The Black Mask Boys)
Ben Jardinn
Created by Raoul Whitfield Pseudonyms include Ramon Decolta and Temple Field (1896-1945) "I'm after a killer, man or woman. It's my business. I'll take your money...I'll take anyone's money, if I can give something for it. This isn't a hobby with me. I don't work in a library, or go into trances. I don't dope … Continue reading Ben Jardinn
John Dalmas
Created by Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) "I felt like an amputated leg." -- "Trouble is My Business" “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like … Continue reading John Dalmas
Harrigan
Created by Ed Lybeck Pseudonym of Charles Edward Widegren (1905-1965) "Well, who's dead now?" -- Harrigan answers the phone, in "Kick Back" There were plenty of hard-boiled newsmen in the detective pulps of the thirties and forties, but Ed Lybeck's FRANCIS ST. XAVIER HARRIGAN, "star reporter" for The New York Leader, may have been the only … Continue reading Harrigan
Luther McGavock
Created by Merle Constiner (1902-79) LUTHER McGAVOCK was a Memphis-based private eye whose cases on behalf of agency boss Atherton Browne took him all over the rural American South. He appeared in some stories in Black Mask, all packed with peculiar goings-on, bizarre characters and oddball plots, often revolving around the most arcane bits of … Continue reading Luther McGavock
Rex Sackler
Created by D.L. Champion Pseudonyms include Tom Champion, Jack D’Arcy, G. Wayman Jones, C. K. M. Scanlon & Robert Wallace (1903-68) Skinny, erudite REX SACKLER is an eccentric private eye so tight with a buck he practically squeaks. A former police detective, this "Shylock of Shamuses”quit the police department because he felt he could do … Continue reading Rex Sackler
Cellini Smith
Created by Robert Reeves (1912-45) Reminescent at times of Frank Gruber and Norbert Davis, Robert Reeves is one of those pulpsters whose work has been sadly forgotten, making his CELLINI SMITH one of the great lost eyes of the era. In his first appearance, in Dead and Done For (1939), we meet Cellini, a young … Continue reading Cellini Smith
Carroll John Daly
Pseudonyms include John D. Carroll (1889--1958) "(Throughout his career) Daly remained an artificial, awkward, self-conscious pulpster, endlessly repetitious, hopelessly melodramatic. He had absolutely no ability for three dimensional characterization, nor did he posess a feel for language or mood. Additionally, he was cursed with a tin ear. His dialogue was impossibly stilted... and totally lacked … Continue reading Carroll John Daly
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