Reviews

The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories, by Charles M. Green, Hank Searls, Carroll John Daly, Ray Cummings, Day Keene, H.H. Stinson, John D. MacDonald, Thomas Walsh, Norbert Davis, D.L. Champion, Horace McCoy, Brett Halliday, Bruno Fischer, Wyatt Blassingame, Ramon Decolta, Keith Alan Deutsch, Talmadge Powell, Peter Collinson, Frederick Nebel, George Harmon Coxe, Otto Penzler, William Campbell Gault, Frederick C. Davis, Fredric Brown, Merle Constiner, Dale Clark, Theodore A. Tinsley, Don M. Mankiewicz, Frank Gruber, William Cole, Hugh B. Cave, Dwight V. Babcock, Whitman Chambers, Steve Fisher, Walter C. Brown, Katherine Brocklebank, Cornell Woolrich, Charles G. Booth, Richard Sale, Cleve F. Adams, Raoul Whitfield, Richard Deming, Stewart Sterling, Lester Dent, W.T. Ballard, Norvell W. Page, Richard Connell, Milton K. Ozaki, Julius Long, Robert Reeves, William Rollins Jr.

skjam's review

5.0

This is a huge book, and pretty much everything in it is choice, being some of the best stories from thirty years of Black Mask magazine, the number one source of hard-boiled detective and crime fiction in the pulp days.

I especially liked some of the shorter stories that sneaked a punch into a few pages.

As was the trend at the time, there are both overt and contextual racism and sexism in some of the stories; it's noted in one introduction that Black Mask readers were not fond of independent, competent female leads. The story "The Color of Honor" especially turns upon the lead character's racism, in a way that makes his mindset nearly incomprehensible to some modern readers.

Still, the wide collection of authors and types of stories make this a rewarding read and the page to price ratio makes this an excellent bang for your buck.

For more anthology reviews, see http://www.skjam.com/tag/anthology/