Anthology Roundup

Hardboiled fiction started out in the pages of Black Mask magazine, and through the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, mystery and suspense magazines flourished, with names like Dime Detective, Spicy Detective, and even Hollywood Detective, a magazine devoted to just one character, Robert Leslie Bellem's Dan Turner. As the markets for short fiction dried up, short mystery writers found their work harder to sell, but they persevered, and the short story is still a vital and important type of crime fiction. So, without further ado, we present our favorite mystery and suspense short-story anthologies.

The Mammoth Book Of Private Eye Stories
edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg

A no-brainer. The definitive collection. Editors Pronzini and Greenberg have selected stories from virtually every important detective writer, from Raymond Chandler to Loren D. Estleman, with stops along the way for the likes of Carrol John Daly, Ross Macdonald, and Lawrence Block. Includes Richard S. Prather's "Dead Giveaway", a hilarious Shell Scott story, and "Iris" by Stephen Greenleaf, the saddest PI story I have ever read.

The Mammoth Book Of Pulp Fiction
edited by Maxim Jakubowski

Another mammoth book, this one focusing on suspense stories. Jakubowski has managed to round up short stories by virtually every noir writer of the 1950s and 60s: Jim Thompson, David Goodis, Fredric Brown, etc., etc. The stories are about equally split between the frequently-anthologized and the hard-to-find, but all are terrific. (While I was doing the research for this article I discovered a follow-up volume, The Mammoth Book Of Pulp Action, is due this December)

Hard-Boiled
edited by Bill Pronzini and Jack Adrian

A chronological survey of hard boiled fiction, from its roots in the pulp magazines of the Roaring Twenties right up to the present. Pronzini is well known as a pulp collector, and he's put it to good use here; among other things, he's dredged up "Trouble Chaser" by Paul Cain, the second story featuring a fixer named Black. Other highlights include a rare Mike Hammer story by Mickey Spillane, "Graveyard Shift" by James Reasoner, and the hilarious "Gravy Train" by James Ellroy.

The Black Lizard Anthology Of Crime Fiction
edited by Ed Gorman

This anthology of noir stories tends towards the modern, featuring writers like Clark Howard, Harlan Ellison, and Joe R. Lansdale. The gems, though, are turned in by writers you don't see much in mystery-suspense circles these days: "Set 'Em Up, Joe" by Barbara Beman and "Death And The Dancing Shadows" by James Reasoner. There's a second Black Lizard anthology, and it's pretty good, too.

Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe
edited by Byron Preiss

This is the oddball on the list. The other anthologies are collections of (mostly) reprints, on a variety of subjects; this is a collection of all-original stories, all featuring Philip Marlowe. This book followed a decade of increasing popularity for private eye stories, and sort of cemented their status while pointing the way ahead into the 90s. Max Allan Collins starts his story with a real crime, as he frequently does; in this case "The Perfect Crime" solves the puzzle behind the death of starlet Thelma Todd; Robert J. Randisi sends Marlowe cross-country to New York City in "Locker 246"; a just-beginning Robert Crais has Marlowe meet "The Man Who Knew Dick Bong". My personal favorite: "The Devil's Playground" by James Grady.