Pulp Fiction: The Villains

by Otto Penzler

Harlan Ellison introduces a collection of 16 taut and muscular tales starring some of fiction's hardest-boiled criminals, crooks, deperados and rogues. Anti-heroes to a man, these are the guys who can be guaranteed to outwit the cops, make off with the dough and get the girl. Just don't get in their way. 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, James M. Cain, Norbert Davis, Leslie Charteris, C. S. Montayne and Raoul Whitfield 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: Fiction, Short Stories, Crime, Anthologies, Pulp, Thriller

528 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Otto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.

Otto Penzler founded The Mysteriour Press in 1975 and was the publisher of The Armchair Detective, the Edgar-winning quarterly journal devoted to the study of mystery and suspense fiction, for seventeen years.

Penzler has won two Edgar Awards, for The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection in 1977, and The Lineup in 2010. The Mystery Writers of America awarded him the prestigious Ellery Queen Award in 1994, and the Raven--the group's highest non-writing award--in 2003.

Reviews

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

We used to watch a lot of film noir in the states and I've not seen any for years now. So I've been wanting to pick up some pulp crime novels for the past couple months. This was the first book I found. The short stories in here are all reprints from the pulp magazines of the 20s and 30s. I have to say I enjoyed most of these stories quite a bit, some more than others. I preferred the ones that were in first person narration or where the characters just sounded like Humphrey Bogart or James Cagney. The first story The Cat Woman by Erle Stanley Gardner was one of the best. It had an incredibly competent young heiress who took to a life of crime with a great degree of intelligence and intuition. Pigeon Blood by Paul Cain was another favourite, a woman addicted to gambling who killed a man with a golf club who had been trying to break into her apartment while she was drunk, and the detective who had a balcony with no railings so whenever he felt the need to commit suicide he could (He also had a collection of books on the occult for no discernable reason). There was an odd collection of stories that were actually about villains and those that were about vigilantes or cops. Some were definitely more crime stories than mysteries but it felt like a good mix and was a lot of fun. Though none of the stories were quite like Love and Bullets by Nick Taylo.

[Guy Worthey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of shorts is great for grins in small bites. Leave your worries behind and wallow in slightly dorky antiquated yarns of yesteryear. There is plenty to hate if you're a hater, such as obvious plot devices, cringeworthy sexism, and worship of undeserving heroes. But, c'mon, this is pulp fiction, and it's the real stuff, in all its choppy naivete. As Harlan Ellison says in the introduction, the writers were getting a half cent per word. At that rate, you don't have the luxury of whiling the afternoon away rearranging the adverbs on page twelve.

I admit it. I'm addicted to clipped sentences.

I especially enjoyed the rambling telepathy of The Saint in "The Invisible Millionaire" and the ridiculously perfect plot twists (and giant snake) in "House of Kaa." You should skip the Moon Man one, "The Sinister Sphere." It's just too bad.

The introduction by Harlan Ellison deserves a mention for insight into his own life journey, and I'm an Ellison fan. In summary, if you have any sort of yen for detective fiction from the 1930s, I recommend reading some randomly-sampled fraction of the 685 pages, according to your whimsies.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suspect that when, half-way through a book, you're still thinking that the introduction has been a highlight, it probably would be a good time to throw in the towel.

Not that there's nothing particularly unpredictable about any of the stories in this anthology, having said that, I think that was part of the problem. It was all a bit predictable, and most of the stories got overly tedious as a result. Obviously, when reading these sorts of collections, some allowance has to be made for a differing sensibility, but I will confess that I was very quickly over the tough guy with the soft interior; the scheming women; the constant cliches and the rather transparent plots.

Having said that, it really was a fantastic introduction by Harlan Ellison, and it possibly could have been called worthwhile reading as an exercise in reminding me of how far we've come. But to be honest, introduction aside, it was all pretty forgettable.

[Edwin Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me two years to finish this book.
The Crimes of Richmond City series by Frederick Nebel was undoubtedly the highlight.
Patchy overall but it’s more about the atmosphere than the quality.
Excuse me while I go listen to Django Reinhardt and call people ‘bright boy’ and ‘wise guy’.

[Tolkien InMySleep · Rating 4 out of 5]

Varied and interesting collection of "Robin Hood"-style villains at the height of "Pulp"

[Chris Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Top notch stories from Black Mask, a truly great era of crime.

[James Kinsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's no pretending that I loved a book it took me two years of picking up and putting down to trawl through. That said, once you get into the style, it has a certain curiosity value. Some of the stories are dreadful - Frederick C. Davis' Moon-Man is a stand-out bit of nonsense. But there are gems. The quintet of Louis Frederick Nebel's MacBride stories at the end see the collection finish on a high note, and there are other flashes of quality within. All in all, the ferocious productivity of writers in this age means a lot of these tales feel knocked out, and it's no bad thing that this kind of writing died out - but it's also no bad thing that collections like this still exist for the modern reader to discover.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great collection of exactly what you'd expect--some great stories of hard boiled detectives and some fairly cheesy tales of dastardly criminals. Go into it expecting to be entertained by pulp fiction, and you'll enjoy it.

[Paul Perry]

A wonderful charity shop find, going to enjoy this one i think