From Publishers Weekly
"Pulp fiction never dies!" proclaims Maxim Jakubowski and he might be right: the editor of The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction returns with The Mammoth Book of Pulp Action, a celebration of the hardboiled form. From Raoul Whitfield's 1929 "Sinners' Paradise" to Michael Guinzburg's 2000 "The Gangsta Wore Red," this volume has all the big guns, dirty cops, shady characters and dishonest damsels a pulp enthusiast could hope for. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Packed solid with seven decades of pulp action and peopled by shady operators, voluptuous molls, ruthless big shots, crooked cops, and gruff private eyes, this new collection of hard-boiled tales includes classics by such masters of the craft as Dashiell Hammett, Robert Leslie Bellem, Cornell Woolrich, and Erle Stanley Gardner, as well as some of the best modern crime fiction to be published by postwar giants like John D. MacDonald, Ross McDonald, Ed McBain, Charles Willeford, David Goodis, and James Ellroy.
The Mammoth Book of Pulp Action FROM THE PUBLISHER
Packed solid with seven decades of pulp action and peopled by shady operators, voluptuous molls, ruthless big shots, crooked cops, and gruff private eyes, this new collection of hard-boiled tales includes classics by such masters of the craft as Dashiell Hammett, Robert Leslie Bellem, Cornell Woolrich, and Erle Stanley Gardner, as well as some of the best modern crime fiction to be published by postwar giants like John D. MacDonald, Ross McDonald, Ed McBain, Charles Willeford, David Goodis, and James Ellroy.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
"Pulp fiction never dies!" proclaims Maxim Jakubowski and he might be right: the editor of The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction returns with The Mammoth Book of Pulp Action, a celebration of the hardboiled form. From Raoul Whitfield's 1929 "Sinners' Paradise" to Michael Guinzburg's 2000 "The Gangsta Wore Red," this volume has all the big guns, dirty cops, shady characters and dishonest damsels a pulp enthusiast could hope for. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Jakubowski, editor of The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (not reviewed), breezily and confidently defines the genre of this collection of 23 stories and novelettes as a place "where action and thrills are paramount and the reader is trapped in a whirlwind of adventure and suspense." Exactly why that definition led him to include several tame locked-room-puzzles by assorted hands, a tepid Nameless story by Bill Pronzini, a torpid Sharon McCone episode by Marcia Muller, and a well-written but virtually crimeless piece by Ed McBain is unclear. Still, he packs in enough examples of dated cliches and gasp-inducing violence to please most pulpists. "You big lug!" chirps a girlie in Frederick C. Davis's 1953 "Where There's a Will, There's a Slay." "You double-dealing Delilah!" sneers a dupe in Bruce Cassidy's 1949 "Brush Babe's Poison Pallet." Eyeballs are popped out, bitten off, and eaten in Joe R. Lansdale's 1987 "The Pit," Michael Guinzburg's "The Gangsta Wore Red," and Mark Timlin's "Dog Life," these last two both written within the past year or so. Best-writing honors go to David Goodis for his twisty "Caravan to Tarim" (1946); the most disappointing solution to a mystery is John D. MacDonald's wind-up to "College Cut Kill" (1950). Jakubowski's also cobbled together selections from old-timers Erle Stanley Gardner, Raoul Whitfield, Frank Gruber, and Frederic Brown, as well as the late cult figure Charles Willeford. Despite the cast, the collection lacks the pow one would expect from the pulps.
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