They form a segment of American crime and mystery fiction that refuses to die. Still very much with us in nearly every style of contemporary writing, the tough detective school is a mixture of cynicism, violence, native American pragmatism and heroic poetry. The early pulp magazine had untrimmed edges and a lurid, four-color cover. It was a training ground for writers who went on to dominate the fields of Western, suspense and action writing and particularly the mystery-detective field. In many senses, the characters who emerged from the pulp mystery pages represented the last stronghold of individuality in a country that was plunged into the depression. Here, then, is an anthology of representative stories taken from the great, driving forces in pulp detective fiction: Black Mask, Dime Detective, and Detective Fiction Weekly. They represent the work being done in the 20's and 30's and are offered here as more than a nostalgic look at the past. They are offered as prototypes of one of the most popular fiction types ever developed.
Author
Pseudonyms: Howard Lee; Frank S Shawn; Kenneth Robeson; Con Steffanson; Josephine Kains; Joseph Silva; William Shatner. Ron Goulart is a cultural historian and novelist. Besides writing extensively about pulp fiction—including the seminal Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of Pulp Magazines (1972)—Goulart has written for the pulps since 1952, when the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction published his first story, a sci-fi parody of letters to the editor. Since then he has written dozens of novels and countless short stories, spanning genres and using a variety of pennames, including Kenneth Robeson, Joseph Silva, and Con Steffanson. In the 1990s, he became the ghostwriter for William Shatner’s popular TekWar novels. Goulart’s After Things Fell Apart (1970) is the only science-fiction novel to ever win an Edgar Award. In the 1970s Goulart wrote novels starring series characters like Flash Gordon and the Phantom, and in 1980 he published Hail Hibbler, a comic sci-fi novel that began the Odd Jobs, Inc. series. Goulart has also written several comic mystery series, including six books starring Groucho Marx. Having written for comic books, Goulart produced several histories of the art form, including the Comic Book Encyclopedia (2004).
