Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories edited by Bill Pronzini and Jack Adrian

Hard-Boiled contains mystery short stories from the 1920s through the 1990s. While I picked it up primarily to read the pulps from the 1920s – 1940s, I figured I’d read the rest while I’m at it. Bill Pronzini has edited several books of mysteries and knows what he’s doing.

For the most part, Hard-Boiled reinforced what I already knew–I like the pulp mysteries the best. The editors included stories by such pulp luminaries as Paul Cain, Raoul Whitfield, Dashiell Hammett, Frederick Nebel and Raymond Chandler. They also included several authors I was not all that familiar with like Brett Halliday and William Cole.

In the post pulp era, the authors included were Elmore Leonard, Ross Macdonald, Mickey Spillane, Ed McBain (Evan Hunter), and Lawrence Block along with unknowns (to me) Leigh Brackett, Helen Nielson and others.

I found the latter stories to be more morbid, more depressing, and less inclined to focus on atmosphere. The pulp mysteries were gritty and some had a more ‘noir’ feeling to them. The language in the pulps seemed to be more descriptive and thought out as well.

The editors included a little bio of each author, noting their best known works, anthologies and those that were made into films. Many of the authors had short careers, some moved into script writing and editing and some veered away from mysteries altogether.

Hard-Boiled is a well rounded anthology of crime stories and one that should be in every mystery lover’s library.