The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, 2010

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This Diwali or Christmas I'm going to gift myself The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps (2010) by Otto Penzler, the noted editor of crime and mystery fiction and owner of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York. Both festivals are a long way off but I can’t get myself to buy it right away owing to my fairly large pile of unread books and ebooks. Besides, I have no more space on my bookshelves and in my cabinets, and my tablet is running out of memory. Until I read and dispose of a minimum of two dozen paper books at the earliest, I'm not going to buy any, unless I find something rare and out of print.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep the The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps: The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age—The 20s, 30s & 40s at the back of my mind. I might try and read some of the stories individually, if they’re available in public domain.

The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps is over a thousand pages long and contains nearly fifty short stories and two novels “by every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more.”

The anthology has a foreword by Otto Penzler and is divided into three parts, ‘The Crimefighters,’ ‘The Villains,’ and ‘The Dames,’ and the short stories penned by some of the grittiest crime fiction writers include the following.

The Crimefighters

Introduction: Harlan Coben

‘One, Two, Three’ by Paul Cain

‘The Creeping Siamese’ by Dashiell Hammett

‘Honest Money’ by Erle Stanley Gardner

‘Frost Rides Alone’ by Horace McCoy

‘Stag Party’ by Charles G. Booth

‘Double Check’ by Thomas Walsh

‘The City of Hell!’ By Leslie T. White

‘Red Wind’ by Raymond Chandler

‘Wise Guy’ by Frederick Nebel

‘Murder Picture’ by George Harmon Coxe

‘The Price of a Dime’ by Norbert Davis

‘Chicago Confetti’ by William Rollins, Jr.

‘Two Murders, One Crime’ by Cornell Woolrich

‘The Third Murderer’ by Carroll John Daly


The Villains

Introduction: Harlan Ellison

‘The Cat-Woman’ by Erle Stanley Gardner

‘The Dilemma of the Dead Lady’ by Cornell Woolrich

‘The House of Kaa’ by Richard B. Sale

‘The Invisible Millionaire’ by Leslie Charteris

‘Faith’ by Dashiell Hammett

‘Pastorale’ by James M. Cain

‘The Sad Serbian’ by Frank Gruber

‘You'll Always Remember Me’ by Steve Fisher

‘Finger Man’ by Raymond Chandler

‘You'll Die Laughing’ by Norbert Davis

‘About Kid Deth’ by Raoul Whitfield

‘The Sinister Sphere’ by Frederick C. Davis

‘Pigeon Blood’ by Paul Cain

‘The Perfect Crime’ by C.S. Montanye

‘The Monkey Murder’ by Erle Stanley Gardner

‘The Crimes of Richmond City’ — Raw Law, Dog Eat Dog, The Law Laughs Last, Law Without Law, and Graft by Frederick Nebel


The Dames

Introduction: Laura Lippman

‘Angel Face’ by Cornell Woolrich

‘Chosen to Die’ by Leslie T. White

‘A Pinch of Snuff’ by Eric Taylor

‘Killer in the Rain’ by Raymond Chandler

‘Sally the Sleuth’ by Adolphe Barreaux

‘A Shock for the Countess’ by C.S. Montanye

‘Snowbound’ by C.B. Yorke

‘The Girl Who Knew Too Much’ by Randolph Barr

‘The Corpse in the Crystal’ by D.B. McCandless

‘He Got What He Asked For’ by D.B. McCandless

‘Gangster's Brand’ by P.T. Luman

‘Dance Macabre’ by Robert Reeves

‘The Girl with the Silver Eyes’ by Dashiell Hammett

‘The Jane from Hell's Kitchen’ by Perry Paul

‘The Duchess Pulls a Fast One’ by Whitman Chambers

‘Mansion of Death’ by Roger Torrey

‘Concealed Weapon’ by Roger Torrey

‘The Devil's Bookkeeper’ by Carlos Martinez

‘Black Legion’ by Lars Anderson

‘Three Wise Men of Babylon’ by Richard Sale

‘The Adventure of the Voodoo Moon’ by Eugene Thomas

‘Brother Murder’ by T.T. Flynn

‘Kindly Omit Flowers’ by Stewart Sterling

I haven’t read many of these writers and some I haven’t even heard of. I'm way behind in my reading of crime fiction of the Golden Age. This anthology will right the imbalance. A copy of The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps can be bought at Amazon.