Description
Book SynopsisWhat are the ingredients of a hard-boiled detective story? `Savagery, style, sophistication, sleuthing and sex,'' said Ellery Queen. Often a desperate blonde, a jealous husband, and, of course, a tough-but-tender P.I. - the likes of Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. These elements, typifying the gritty strain of American crime fiction termed `hard boiled'', have profoundly influenced the public''s imagination, both through the literary mainstream and through the many films based on hard-boiled fiction (The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice etc.). 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 evolution of this quintessentially American art form, from its beginnings in the 1920s to the present day. It contains stories by Dashiel Hammett, Raymond Chandler, an
Trade Reviewan anthology of consistently high quality, full of forgotten gems alongside the famous names, and a potent reminder that it's a noir, noir world. * John Williams, The Mail on Sunday *
One of the best anthologies ever to trace the hard-nosed, amoral school of American short crime fiction. * Mike Ripley, Daily Telegraph *
