Most of the masters of hardboiled crime plied their trade in the era when the big money was made writing for magazines like True Detective and Black Mask. Which is good news for readers who love short stories.
Here are some of the best collections of gritty noir short stories.
Evil Grows
As the title of this richly entertaining collection suggests, Estelman—who published his first novel in 1976—would have slotted right in to the golden age of the pulp magazine.
The world you’ll find in these pages is one of dark alleys and dive bars. It’s a place populated by grifters, corrupt cops, whisky-breathed killers, punchy but noble prizefighters and women who smoke—in every sense.
Estelman conjures up the seedy glamour of the hardboiled world brilliantly and spikes his sharp prose with wisecracks so acid they could melt an anvil.
American Noir Classics
The author of Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice was described by heavy-hitting literary critic Edmund Wilson as ‘the poet of tabloid murder’ (he had another unlikely fan in French Nobel prize-winner, Andre Gide).
Cain certainly lives up to that billing in this superb collection of short stories. They are filled with his trademark mix of smoldering sexuality and seething violence—the two as inextricably intertwined as mating squid.
What marks them out as special, though, is the Maryland native’s matchless ability to set up plausible situations in which one misstep precipitates a dizzying spiral toward destruction.
Berlin Noir
Noir might be a genre invented in the US, but if you are looking for shadows, fear, corruption, and the occasional white knight, then you’d struggle to find a city with more of them to offer than the German capital.
While this collection doesn’t feature any Philip Kerr-style historical detective fiction, the dark history of Berlin hovers in the background of every story, whether it’s the tale of a neat-and-tidy female serial killer, a group of soccer hooligans plotting to slay a fan of a rival team, or a comical bunch of barflies struggling to figure out a way of disposing of a body that’s unexpectedly turned up in the freezer of their local pub.
Brooklyn Noir
This is the first in a great series of short story anthologies edited by McLoughlin (who also contributes a tale to this one) and set in the New York borough.
There’s barely a dud in this 20-story collection, and many stand-outs.
High amongst them: “Hasidic Noir” by Pearl Abraham a razor-edged tale set amongst the Hasidim community of Williamsburg, Pete Hammil’s tightly-wound narrative of scars re-opening, “The Book Signing” and Adam Mansbach’s “Crown Heist” a pinpoint examination of the relationship between a couple of minor league drug dealers that calls to mind early period George V. Higgins.
The New Mammoth Book Of Pulp Fiction (Mammoth Books 319)
A gloriously lurid collection of 32 hardboiled crime tales selected from the pages of Black Mask, Dare Devil Aces, and other classic pulp magazines from the middle decades of the twentieth century by British mystery writing expert Jakubowski.
You’ll find quality work here by many of the greats of noir, including Dashiell Hammett, Micky Spillane, John D Macdonald, and Jim Thompson. Though at a mighty 832 pages, it’s not a volume you can easily slip into a coat pocket to read on your daily commute.
The Best American Noir of the Century
Pretty much any mystery anthology edited by Otto Penzler is worth checking out. This blockbuster collection of 39 hardboiled tales—written between 1923 and 2007—features short fiction by celebrated noir writers from the 1930s and 40s.
Includes work by Cain, Thompson, Dorothy B Hughes, and Patricia Highsmith, alongside the work of modern neo-Noir masters like Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard and, of course, the incomparable Ellroy himself.
The Continental Op: 24 Classic Detective Stories
Hammett’s unnamed Continental Operative is the archetypal hardboiled private eye—a tough, overweight, cynical loner with a pure heart hidden beneath the wide lapels of a sharp suit and the butt of a revolver.
He’s a decent guy thrust into a bleak world of violence, venality, and despair, and doing his best to survive and maybe do a little good along the way.
These seven classic tales first appeared in Black Mask magazine nearly a century ago, but they have barely aged, such is their quality.
Hammett’s prose is as sharp and cutting as a diamond, and will last as long as one, too. Treat yourself.
Black is the Night: Stories inspired by Cornell Woolrich
Cornell Woolrich is one of the noir greats, responsible, amongst other things, for writing Rear Window. In this excellent collection, Jakubowski brings together stories by modern noir writers who have been inspired by Woolrich’s work.
It’s a clever concept and the writers—who include Joe R. Lansdale (Hap and Leonard), James Sallis (Drive), and Samantha Lee Howe (The House of Killers)—really rise to the challenge.
Packed with deception, jealousy, and greed, they’re exactly the sort of stories here that might once have been turned into movies starring Richard Widmark and Virginia Lake.
