Recommended reading - The Mammoth Book of Short Crime Novels

 

The Mammoth Book of Short Crime Novels

Edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg.
 
Published 1986.
Published by Robinson Publishing.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0948164212
ISBN-13: 978-0948164217
 
Description:
 
Complete and Unabridged.
 
12 Short Crime Novels by the masters of suspense:
 
The Lawless Lady, by Leslie Charteris.
Simon Templar, alias the Saint, pits his skills against an ingenious group of thieves.
 
Introducing Susan Dare, by Mignon Eberhart.
Meet detective Susan Dare in her first appearance, solving the murder of a fellow houseguest.
 
Nightmare, by Cornell Woolrich.
A murder mystery full of psychological terror in the tradition of Poe.
 
Death’s Eye View, by John D. MacDonald.
A chilling tale of attempted murder off the Florida coast.
 
The Murder Machine, by Hugh Pentecost.
Sabotage and murder set the scene at a quarry in rural Pennsylvania.
 
Death Rides a Boxcar, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Lost purses, bribery, sabotage and train yards at midnight contribute to a thrilling tale of espionage.
 
The Bearded Lady, by Ross MacDonald.
Private eye Lew Archer sets out to solve the theft of a painting and gets involved in a double murder.
 
Murder Set to Music, by Fredric Brown.
Would you buy a used car from this man. Salesman and musician – but is that all he is?
 
The Zero Clue, by Rex Stout.
The famous Nero Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie Goodwin, help a stumped New York police department solve a murder.
 
Storm, by Ed McBain.
A ski weekend in New England turns into a double murder for 87th Precinct Detective Cotton Hawes.
 
Don’t Look Now, by Daphne Du Maurier.
A classic tale of psychic events in Venice.
 
Booktaker, by Bill Pronzini.
Meet the most inventive thief in San Francisco – can you work out how he does it?

Recommended reading - The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories (1988)

 

The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories (1988).

Edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg.

 
Published by Running Press.
This revised edition published in 2004.
Paperback.
 
ISBN-10: 0786713712
ISBN-13: 978-0786713714
 
Description:
 

The very best in hardboiled fiction, from such masters as Ross Macdonald, Raymond Chandler, Marcia Muller, Michael Collins, Ed McBain, William Campbell Gault and many more.

With its roots in the American private detective fiction of the 1920s but traceable back as far as Sherlock Holmes, the private eye story remains as popular as ever. 

Here are 24 of the finest short novels and stories from the hardboiled world of the private eye. The characters in this collection range from the tough, cynical, hard-drinking Philip Marlowe type to hard-hitting female private eyes and the one-armed intellectual Dan Fortune – from masters of the genre past and present.

Recommended reading - Hardboiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (1995):

 

Hardboiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (1995).

Edited by Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian.

Description:

Compellingly and compulsively readable, Hard-Boiled: 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 1930s, 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), Jim Thompson, Helen Nielsen, Margaret Maron, Andrew Vachss, Faye Kellerman, and Lawrence Block.

Containing many notable rarities, Hard-Boiled celebrates a genre that has profoundly shaped not only American Literature and film, but how we see our heroes and ourselves.