Fifteen classic hard-boiled stories by an undisputed master Following gangsters, blackmailers, and gunmen through the underbelly of 1930s America on their journeys to do dark deeds, Paul Cain's stories are classics of his genre. The protagonists of ambiguous morality who populate Cain's work are portrayed with a cinematic flair for the grim hardness of their world. This collection presents Cain's classic crime stories to a contemporary audience.
This collection, holding some of Cain's finest work ever to appear in Black Mask, was first published in 1950. It opens, fittingly, with Black, an account of a mysterious stranger who winds up playing both sides following his macabre discovery in a nameless time. Also in the book is Parlor Trick, about beautiful Bella's fast-talking following the discovery of a corpse in her kitchen. Additional: Little is known about the life of writer George Carrol Sims, who used the pseudoynms Paul Cain for his pulp career, and Peter Ruric for his tasks as a screenwriter. Sims was that rarest of creatures-a succesful novelist and Hollywood scribe. He also dated the actress Gertrude Michael, and the character of Granquist in Fast One was based on her.
What are the ingredients of a hard-boiled detective story? "Savagery, style, sophistication, sleuthing and sex," said Ellery Queen. Often a desperate blond, a jealous husband, and, of course, a tough-but-tender P.I. the likes of Sam Spade or Philop Marlowe. Perhaps Raymond Chandler summed it up best in his description of Dashiell Hammett's style: "Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it....He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes." 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 evolutiuon 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," in which the disappearance of two sisters leads Hammett's never-named detective, the Continental Op, straight into a web of sexual blackmail amidst the West Coast elite, to Ed Gorman's 1992 "The Long Silence After," a gripping and powerful rendezvous involving a middle class insurance executive, a Chicago streetwalker, and a loaded .38. Other delectable contributions include "Brush Fire" by James M. Cain, author of The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raymond Chandler's "I'll Be Waiting," where, for once, the femme fatale is not blond but a redhead, a Ross Macdonald mystery starring Macdonald's most famous creation, the cryptic Lew Archer, and "The Screen Test of Mike Hammer" by the one and only Micky Spillane. The hard-boiled cult has more in common with the legendary lawmen of the Wild West than with the gentleman and lady sleuths of traditional drawing room mysteries, and this direct line of descent is on brilliant display in two of the most subtle and tautly written stories in the collection, Elmore Leonard's "3:10 to Yuma" and John D. MacDonald's "Nor Iron Bars." Other contributors include Evan Hunter (better known as Ed McBain), Jim Thompson, Helen Nielsen, Margaret Maron, Andrew Vachss, Faye Kellerman, and Lawrence Block. Compellingly and compulsively readable, Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories is a page-turner no mystery lover will want to be without. Containing many notable rarities, it celebrates a genre that has profoundly shaped not only American literature and film, but how we see our heroes and oursleves.
While assisting local forces to quell widespread civil disorder, Commissar Cain and his regiment of Valhallans discover sinister forces are at work behind the scenes. With a rioting populace, aliens on the rampage, and the Inquisition poking their noses everywhere, how can the wily commissar ever find the easy life he prefers? Original.
“Nobody can do multicultural Los Angeles better than Denise Hamilton.” —The Denver Post Now, the Edgar Award–nominated author sends reporter Eve Diamond on a suspense-charged investigation of the deadly criminal element in the city as colorful and unpredictable as Eve herself. Shadowing a customs official for a story, Eve is a witness when gunfire erupts at LAX. A beautiful Asian woman is killed, and her little girl is swept away by the INS. Eve suspects the toddler is being used by smugglers who trade in human lives. With the return of her ex-lover, Eve has everything to lose as she races to protect the child from ruthless armed men -- and may find herself caught in their sights.
The woman found dead in a chic shopping center parking lot still wears her two-carat engagement ring on her finger. To the cops, it looks like a carjacking. But to reporter Eve Diamond, it looks likes there's more to this story. Soon Eve plunges into L.A.'s underworld, where young women are forced into sexual slavery. But someone wants to keep these dirty little secrets from being revealed.
In these previously uncollected stories inspired by the hit Batman: The Animated Series, Batgirl swings across the rooftops of Gotham City alongside Batman, Nightwing, and Robin to battle the likes of Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Ra's al Ghul. She even finds time to team up with her father, Commissioner Gordon, to catch two escaped convicts. Collects the all-ages Batgirl Adventures #1 and Batman: Gotham Adventures #8-9, #22, and 38!
The sequel to cult film, El Topo, from controversial filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. “Oh, father, I cannot kill you, but I can kill your son . . .” El Topo was a bandit without limits, a man with no moral compass, but when his journey through the arid west brought him face to face with a series of rogue outcasts, he found enlightenment in the unlikeliest place and was forever transformed, becoming a holy vessel imbued with the power to perform miracles. This was a journey that took him far from his first born son, Cain, and brought about the birth of Abel. Fueled by resentment, and unable to kill his saintly father, Cain begins the slow pursuit of his half brother in a tale of magic and mayhem worthy of legendary filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and virtuosic illustrator José Ladrönn. Together, they deliver an allegorical and surrealist western where the genre is at the service of deeper philosophical and spiritual considerations.
With tyranid hive fleets approaching, the Carcharodons make a stand on the world of Piety V. If they can stop the xenos here, they will be able to end the menace before it begins. The Carcharodons’ remit is an unenviable one - this Chapter of Space Marines plies the dark areas of space, endlessly hunting down the enemies of mankind. Living on the edge, with no fixed base of operations, they are creatures shaped by their environment, renowned for their ruthlessness and their brutality. With a fresh wave of tyranid hive fleets approaching the galactic plane, the Carcharodons decide to use the world of Piety V as a bulwark. If they can stop the xenos here, they will be able to end the menace before it begins. But as they mobilise the planet’s defenders and fight the tyranids, the Carcharodons come to learn what the value of mankind truly is.
