Pulp Fiction: The Crimefighters

by Otto Penzier

Harlan Coben introduces a collection of the greatest of the great from the Golden Age of pulp fiction. Here are 14 classic tales of virtue versus villainy that will keep you riveted to your seat. Legendary writers you've already heard of like Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner, Cornell Woolrich and Raymond Chandler are here. Legendary writers that you should have heard of like Frederick Nebel, Paul Cain, Carroll John Daly, George Harman Coxe, Horace McCoy and Thomas Walsh are also where they should be - with the greats. Tailor-made for pulp novices and hard-boiled fans with a soft spot for the masters, this collection shows that some writing has an edge that time just can't dull.

Genres: Crime, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Thriller

528 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2006

Reviews

[Andrew Corsini · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent collection, but some of these stories are definitely better than others. Of course, the Chandler entry "Red Wind" stands head and shoulders over the others, and contains some of the noir great's most famous passages; the opening of this story is iconic. I also loved "City of Hell!" by Leslie T. White, a truly nasty and gritty piece of pulp fiction.

[Arthur B · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why, when compiling a collection of this nature, would you dedicate 170 pages to a novella by an author you admit in your introduction you don't think is any good? For that matter, why would you go with a "only one story per author" schtick and then mysteriously fail to include any stories by women from the era, who were churning out material just as good if not better than some of the third-rate pulp dreck filling these pages?

This is the sort of material which makes you appreciate the like of Hammett and Chandler more, simply for how much better they were than most of the trash their pulp competitors were flooding the market with. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable collection of pulp fiction stories from the 1920s and 30s. As usual, in these collections, the quality is a bit hit or miss, but definitely more hits, though. To be honest i preferred the stories from the lesser known author's and I will definitely be interested in reading further collections. My personal favourites were the stories by White and Davis and Nebel. The weakest story in the collection is the longest and I understand why it was put in but I think a shorter Carrol John Daly would have been better and then another story or two could have been included. It is definitely a book to keep and read again.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Particularly liked stories by Cornell Woolrich ("Two Murders, One Crime"), Charles G. Booth ("Stag Party "), Carroll John Daly (" The Third Murderer"), Raymond Chandler ("Red Wind") .
"The Creeping Siamese" by Dashiell Hammett reminded me of a Sherlock Holmes story, and "Frost Rides Alone" by Horace McCoy feels like a proto-Bond.

And boy was there a lot of anti-Italian feeling in the 30s...

[Paul Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lot of fun. The style of the writing really put me into the story, whether you thought of movies or literally the pulp books referenced in the title.

Some authors I'm going to be seeking more from: Carroll John Daly, Cornell Woolrich, Leslie T. White, and Raymond Chandler. I enjoyed their tales the most.

[Duncan McCurdie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of detective fiction from the golden age. Varying degrees in quality in the stories but all are pretty good and will mainly be down to taste to decide which are the favourites. A good book to dip in and out of at home, can be a bit samey read one go and is too wieldy to be a read on the go.