A collection of suspense stories, puzzle stories, whodunits and tricky whydunits involving police detectives, private eyes, talented and sometimes lucky amateurs, armchair detectives, and ethnic detectives

Someone — I wish it were me — has put together a fantastic collection of Woolrich stories that everyone needs to have. This includes most of his classics (It Had to be Murder is really Rear Window). Many great pulp classics here — plus one I’ve been looking for for a long time, Jane Brown’s Body, which is CW’s only Science Fiction story. Grab this one — it’s a noirfest everyone should indulge in

Impresario Maxie Jones knew a good gimmick when he saw it. The Dance of Kali was sure-fire: a beautiful, exotic girl doing a spectacular dance — sexy but dignified, you understand — and to cap it, a legend that death struck when the dance was done. Maxie even hired a man to “die” dramatically when he premiered the act — terrific publicity, he figured. He got the publicity all right — but he didn't need any fake corpse. When the last drumbeat died, and the patrons rose to cheer the dancer, one of them didn't get up... ...and wouldn't — ever. Tension and terror mark this new novel by America's acknowledged master of suspense, Cornell Woolrich. Pyramid is proud to present Mr. Woolrich's latest work — a completely original story, which has never before appeared in any form

Greedy Vera Miller plots her husband’s murder right under the nose of her mute, paralyzed mother-in-law. After all, the old lady won’t be able to tell anyone about the crime. Or will she?

In his spirited Introduction to a topnotch collection of Great American Detective Stories, Anthony Boucher says: “The detective short story belongs to us. It started in America and it started off magnificently. In five stories, Edgar Allan Poe created the form and almost all its possible variants... There are as many kinds of detective short stories as there are of detective novels — and you’ll find most of them here, from the ethical poetry of Melville Davisson Post to the brash foolery of Frank Gruber.” A glance at some of the titles of the stories included confirms Boucher’s modest words and guarantees that you’ll find plenty of good reading here

The Gringo got the job — to kill the man he’d been hired to protect!

In depths of despair, the beautiful, lonely Madeline contemplates suicide. She gently strokes an ugly revolver, the sole legacy of an alcoholic father. Holding the barrel to her temple, she pulls the trigger. There is only the click of the hammer on an empty chamber. The failure of the weapon brings on a rush of joy, and renewed hope for her future. She throws down the gun — and it explodes with deadly fury. The bullet strikes an innocent young woman passing in the street outside, who in the next moment dies in Madeline’s arms. So begins Into the Night, the quintessential Cornell Woolrich novel, never before published. Although Woolrich worked on it for years, this tale of hatred and passion, of love and suspense, remained unfinished at the time of his death. This undiscovered masterpiece has been completed by Lawrence Block — one of today’s most distinguished mystery writers — to create a work which will stand beside Woolrich’s Rear Window, Phantom Lady, and The Bride Wore Black

Here is the story of a mad love, written against the mysterious background of the underworld. Unlike the ordinary tale of this type with its crude, realistic descriptions, Manhattan Love Song is attuned in style and pace to the exoticism that surrounds and controls the life of Bernice. Because it is unusual, daring and bizarre this book will impress and delight the reader as few books have done before

Following the commercial success of the original Manhattan Noir, mystery titan Lawrence Block explores the historic literary roots of this dark island. Featuring stories by: Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, O. Henry, Langston Hughes, Irwin Shaw, Jerome Weidman, Damon Runyon, Evan Hunter, Jerrold Mundis, Edgar Allan Poe, Horace Gregory, Geoffrey Bartholomew, Cornell Woolrich, Barry N. Malzberg, Clark Howard, Jerome Charyn, Donald E. Westlake, Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, and Susan Isaacs

Any hint of budding literary genius was notably absent from little Johnny’s English paper. But a sinister hint of something else was there — which thrust his pretty schoolmarm into a career of amateur sleuthing and landed her on dangerous ground indeed, before she concluded her one-woman manhunt — and returned to award Johnny’s opus a well-deserved A-plus

Cornell Woolrich published his first novel in 1926, and through-out the next four decades his fiction riveted the reading public with unparalleled mystery, suspense, and horror. America’s most popular pulps — Dime Detective, Black Mask, and Detective Fiction Weekly — published hundreds of his stories. Classic films like Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black and Mississippi Mermaid, Tournier’s Black Alibi, and Siodmak’s Phantom Lady, as well as dozens of other motion pictures, came chillingly to the screen from his work. And novels like Deadline at Dawn, Rendezvous in Black, and Night Has a Thousand Eyes gained him the epithet “father of noir.” Now, with this new volume — the first in nearly two decades — of previously uncollected suspense fiction by the writer deemed to be the Edgar Allan Poe of the twentieth century, a whole new generation of mystery readers, as well as every one of the countless many who have long read and loved his work, can thrill to the achievement of Cornell Woolrich. “Our poet of the shadows,” as he has been called, Woolrich liveв a life of such deep despair and utter terror that he could do little except spill those fears onto the printed page. Yet he would never rid himself of his dark disquietude Woolrich’s life was, as James Ellroy put it, “a tragic existence that resulted in a superbly sustained fictional output.” Masterfully wrought, these stories of night and fear indelibly translate Woolrich’s personal horror into words

Cornell Woolrich was a haunted man who lived a life of reclusive misery, but he was also a uniquely gifted writer who explored the classic noir themes of loneliness, despair and futility. His stories are masterpieces of psychological suspense and mystery, and they have inspired classic movies like Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Truffaut’s The Bride wore Black. This collection brings together twelve of his finest, most powerful and disturbing tales

Enter a world of seedy nightclubs, dangerous, dimly-lit street and cool, wisecracking dicks pitting themselves against armies of ruthless gangsters. This is pulp fiction, a genre spawned amid the disillusionment of post-World War I America — and now reaching new heights of popularity.　 Writers like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett turned that unique blend of rapid-fire action, violence and cynical humour into an art form that is being recreated by a fresh wave of young writers whose stories have all the drama and atmosphere of their predecessors’.　 This page-turning collection, brought together by a true aficionado of the hardboiled story, includes, of course, Chandler and Hammett, but also Mickey Spillane, Ross MacDonald, Ed McBain and James Hadley Chase from the vintage years and from the current generation James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard and Quentin Tarantino, to name just a few of the twenty great writers featured here. Even Stephen King, doyen of the world of horror, has turned his hand to pulp fiction and is represented in this book.　 The world of the hard-drinking, fast-action, apparently indestructible private eye, personified by Chandler’s creation, Philip Marlowe, was never more vibrant. It’s all here, and more, in a book that no fan of the genre can afford to miss

In his introduction to the The Best American Noir of the Century, James Ellroy writes, 'noir is the most scrutinized offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction. It's the long drop off the short pier and the wrong man and the wrong woman in perfect misalliance. It's the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that goes bad.' Offering the best examples of literary sure things gone bad, this collection ensures that nowhere else can readers find a darker, more thorough distillation of American noir fiction. James Ellroy and Otto Penzler, series editor of the annual The Best American Mystery Stories, mined one hundred years of writing - 1910-2010 - to find this treasure trove of thirty-nine stories. From noir's twenties-era infancy come gems like James M. Cain's 'Pastorale,' and its post-war heyday boasts giants like Mickey Spillane and Evan Hunter. Packing an undeniable punch, diverse contemporary incarnations include Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, Joyce Carol Oates, Dennis Lehane, and William Gay, with many page-turners appearing in the last decade

An unstoppable anthology of crime stories culled from Black Mask magazine the legendary publication that turned a pulp phenomenon into literary mainstream. Black Mask was the apotheosis of noir. It was the magazine where the first hardboiled detective story, which was written by Carroll John Daly appeared. It was the slum in which such American literary titans like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler got their start, and it was the home of stories with titles like “Murder Is Bad Luck,” “Ten Carets of Lead,” and “Drop Dead Twice.” Collected here is best of the best, the hardest of the hardboiled, and the darkest of the dark of America’s finest crime fiction. This masterpiece collection represents a high watermark of America’s underbelly. Crime writing gets no better than this. Featuring • Deadly Diamonds • Dancing Rats • A Prize Fighter Fighting for His Life • A Parrot that Wouldn’t Talk Including • Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon as it was originally published • Lester Dent’s Luck in print for the first time

The BIGGEST, the BOLDEST, the MOST COMPREHENSIVE collection of PULP WRITING ever assembled! Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train — a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best. Including: • Three stories by Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Dashiell Hammett. • Complete novels from Carroll John Daly, the man who invented the hard-boiled detective, and Fredrick Nebel, one of the masters of the form. • A never before published Dashiell Hammett story. • Every other major pulp writer of the time, including Paul Cain, Steve Fisher, James M. Cain, Horace McCoy, and many, many more of whom you’ve probably never heard. • Three deadly sections — The Crimefighters, The Villains, and The Dames — with three unstoppable introductions by Harlan Coben, Harlan Ellison, and Laura Lippman. Featuring: • Plenty of reasons for murder, all of them good. • A kid so smart — he’ll die of it. • A soft-hearted loan shark’s legman learning — the hard way — never to buy a strange blonde a hamburger. • The uncanny “Moon Man” and his mad-money victims

Murder at Sloppy Joe’s sends a hunted and heartbroken man twisting and turning down the black path of fear. Human life is something you can take away, but not give back, Scotty remembered as he thought about his embrace with death. The body had simply slipped to the floor, and now he was charged with a murder he didn’t commit. His only proof of innocence destroyed, his only sanctuary a swarthy outcast in a black garret, Scotty had little to live for. Swift and terrible revenge and a search for a photograph negative haunted his mind. With never a moment’s rest, never a sob of relief, the build-up, the atmosphere of terror, and the frantic effort to escape bind the reader closer and closer to tortured Scotty. A stealth of night cloaks this unusual study of fear

Hunted, alone, she went out on her dreadful mission — to find a little white stone of death — the one thing that could save her from the chair!

De Maupassant once wrote: “There is nothing more beautiful and honorable than killing.” The Bride Wore Black offers grim and absorbing proof of that idea. Four men are murdered. Each time a woman they have never known comes into their lives. She appears briefly — she strikes — and disappears. There is never a trace of her left — not a fingerprint, not a clue. Four men are murdered. Four men whose lives do not touch, for whose deaths there is no conceivable reason. The police say, “Homicidal Maniac.” And yet — twice the woman risks her life to save another’s. Four men are murdered. And slowly, very slowly, the picture of the woman grows clearer to the police. She is beautiful, for only a beautiful woman would have worn the filmy black veil found clutched in the hand of the first man who dies. She is clever, for only a clever woman could have escaped from the hotel bedroom of her second victim. She is ruthless, for only a ruthless woman could have used a child’s toy to kill that child’s father. She is strong, for only a strong woman could have used such a weapon for her fourth murder. Four men are murdered. Then comes the fifth. And with it a denouement as breathtakingly exciting as a parachute jump and as extraordinary as the woman herself. The Bride Wore Black is a macabre and brilliant tour de force of crime fiction. It employs none of the usual tricks, yet the reader is enthralled. There are no suspects, no clues, yet the reader is tensely aware of mystery. There is only the woman, her victims, and the relentless drama of her life — a pale shadow that comes gradually into focus and is seen at last in brilliant outline

Dusty Detwiller and his Sandmen were undoubtedly the most-hoodooed aggregation of hot-lickers that ever jammed a number from a bandshell. It kept the Warden of the Mad House jumping, trying to furnish substitutes for the swingsters who apparently Dutched it after each of those fatal jam-sessions. But a smart dick who didn’t know the Bolero from Dinah, and the little blonde who canaried it for the band proved even the cagiest murderer can go kill-corny once too often

The blind man was unwittingly enmeshed in the slimy schemes of a ruthless dope ring. How could he clear his name, with no aid except that of the faithful canine companion who was his “seeing eye,” when he was up against a sinister set-up that had defied the whole narcotic squad?

One person only had faith in him, but that was the girl in the snappy blue car

Story of a boy who found a way

Hillerman, author of the Joe Leaphorn mysteries, and Herbert, editor of The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, trace this short-story genre from its beginnings in the hands of Edgar Allen Poe through its development by the likes of Erle Stanley Gardner, Mary Roberts Rinehart and Anthony Boucher to its current practice by such masters as Marcia Muller. Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," which established a great many of the whodunit conventions, is indispensable to such an overview. Raymond Chandler's "I'll be Waiting" emits a doom-laden atmosphere right from the first line; William Faulkner shows unexpected economy of language?and a transparent plot?in "An Error in Chemistry." Ed McBain scores high marks in "Small Homicide," in which the tiny details of a baby's untimely death resonate uncomfortably. As represented in this competent, unstartling collection, Linda Barnes ("Lucky Penny") easily outsasses Sue Grafton ("The Parker Shotgun"). Hillerman makes a solid appearance with "Chee's Witch," and in "Benny's Space" Muller captures the full subtle force of her novel-length vision

A crumpled five-dollar bill, a ticket to San Francisco, a legal document terminating a marriage lost long ago in angry words— These were all she had. But between today and tomorrow a strange thing happened. She had a chance to build a whole new life, a life based on a lie

Ее брата обвинили в убийстве первой степени. Но она твердо знает, что его подставили вместо настоящего виновника. Чтобы спасти брата, у нее есть пара недель, одолженные полторы сотни долларов, предложение помощи от чувствительного полицейского и ангельское личико

Американский писатель детективного жанра Уильям Айриш (Корнел Вулрич) представлен в сборнике остросюжетным романом «Встречи во мраке». Эллери Квин (литературный псевдоним писателей Фредерика Даннэя и Манфреда Ли) принадлежит роман «Тайна голландского башмака». Известный английский писатель Йен Флеминг знакомит читателя с пятью приключениями знаменитого агента 007 – Джеймса Бонда

Вниманию читателя представлены три произведения известных мастеров американского детектива: «Могила в горах» Росса Макдональда, «Женщина-лризрак» Уильяма Айриша и «Женщина с темным прошлым» Эллери Квина. Романы, при самобытности каждого из них, объединяет один и тот же авторский прием: действие в них сосредоточено на поисках женщины, волею случая оказавшейся в водовороте событий

Родился писатель в декабре 1903 года в Нью-Йорке. Детство Корнелла Вулрича прошло в Мексике, где работал его отец. После того, как родители развелись, Вулрич с матерью вернулся в родной Нью-Йорк, где поступил в Колумбийский университет, на факультет журналистики. Спустя три года ради занятий литературой Вулрич бросил университет. Первые литературные опыты были подражанием Фицджеральду. Дебютное произведение Вулрича было отмечено премией на Первом национальном литературном конкурсе. В 1929 году роман был экранизирован.  В 1940 году было опубликовано произведение Вулрича «Невеста была в черном». С этого романа началась знаменитая «черная серия» Вулрича. Личная жизнь Вулрича стала отражением самых мрачных «черных романов» писателя. Несмотря на то, что Вулрич был весьма обеспеченным человеком, он жил в одном из беднейших отелей Нью-Йорка, который к тому же был центром сбора разного рода мелких преступников. В одном из своих интервью Уильям Айриш говорил, что он никогда не знал других увлечений или занятий, помимо литературы, и поэтому каждый день его жизни похож на предыдущий.                                                                    1. Уильям Айриш: Вальс в темноту (Перевод: Е. Покровская) 2. Уильям Айриш: Встречи во мраке 3. Уильям Айриш: Женщина-призрак 4. Уильям Айриш: Леди-призрак (Перевод: В. Сандомирская) 5. Корнелл Вулрич: Одной ночи достаточно (Перевод: Валерий Чудов) 6. Уильям Айриш: Окно во двор (Перевод: С. Васильева) 7. Уильям Айриш: Слишком хорошо, чтобы умереть (Перевод: И. Тополь) 8. Уильям Айриш: Собака с деревянной ногой (Перевод: И. Тополь) 9. Уильям Айриш: Срок истекает на рассвете (Перевод: Э. Медникова) 10. Уильям Айриш: Танцующий детектив (Перевод: И. Тополь) 11. Уильям Айриш: Убийца поневоле (Перевод: И. Турбин) 12. Уильям Айриш: Умереть бы раньше, чем проснуться (Перевод: Татьяна Ветрова) 13. Уильям Айриш: Чем заняться мертвецу (Перевод: И. Тополь) 14. Уильям Айриш: Я вышла замуж за покойника (Перевод: Валентин Михайлов) 15. Корнелл Вулрич: Дама, валет… (Перевод: Юрий Балаян) 16. Корнелл Вулрич: К оружию, джентльмены, или Путь, пройденный дважды (Перевод: Владимир Бабков) 17. Корнелл Вулрич: Невеста была в черном (Перевод: В. Постников) 18. Корнелл Вулрич: Три казни за одно убийство (Перевод: Юрий Балаян) 19. Корнелл Вулрич: У ночи тысяча глаз (Перевод: В. Постников) 20. Корнелл Вулрич: Чёрный занавес (Перевод: Л. Лебедева)                                                                  

Книга продолжает серию, открывшуюся сборником «Истории, рассказанные шепотом». Включенные в нее новеллы, принадлежащие к разным жанрам, объединяет одно: в основе фабулы каждой из них лежит загадка, которую необходимо разгадать. Попробуйте сделать это, не дожидаясь разъяснений автора

Сборник уникальных детективов и триллеров. Впервые для российского читателя увлекательная повесть Джона Крейзи «Опасные дни» о кровавой битве британских спецслужб с международным преступным синдикатом. Роман Д. X. Чейза «Стук, стук… Кто там?» о жестоком противостоянии авантюриста одиночки и гангстерской шайки. Блестящие рассказы английских и американских писателей, представляющие весь спектр приключенческого жанра от классического детектива и триллера до ковбойского вестерна