Hard Case Crime Puts the Pulp Back in Fiction
Eric Johnson
March 26, 2006
If you like your heroes two-fisted and your women of the kiss first and ask questions later variety, you no longer have to walk the mean streets of thrift stores and flea markets to get your fix. Thanks to Charles Ardai?s Hard Case Crime imprint, pulp fiction is back with a vengeance.
Columbia educated Ardai might seem like an unlikely hardboiled savoir, but the founder and former CEO of Internet giant Juno is almost single handedly resurrecting the spirit of classic pulp fiction. With the help of Dorchester Publishing, he and his partner Max Phillips are giving the mystery public something they haven?t had in years: hard-hitting crime fiction in the traditional paperback style ? with knockout covers by some of today?s top artists.
Last year saw offerings by mystery giants Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Ed McBain and an original novel by a guy named Steven King. Yeah, that Steven King. This year?s lineup includes authors as diverse as Madison Smartt Bell, Max Allen Collins and Pete Hamill.
Make no mistake ? this is gritty stuff. Titles like ?Say it with Bullets? and ?The Gutter and the Grave? hook you, but it?s the covers that reel you in.
Artists as renowned as Robert McGinnis, who along with some 1,200 book covers has produced movie posters for ?Barbarella? and the original James Bond films, set a noir table of sex and violence. Ardai?s own ?Little Girl Lost,? for example, published under the name Richard Aleas, features a stripper in a bra, low-rider hot pants and a gun.
But while these paperbacks may not come with the Oprah Book Club seal of approval, they are by no means disposable fiction. Already three, including ?Little Girl Lost,? have been nominated for Edgars by the Mystery Writers of America, while the Private Eye Writers of America awarded Phillips? ?Fade to Blonde? the 2005 Shamus Award for Best Paperback Novel of the Year.
Though neither Ardai nor Phillips possess the kind of back alley pedigree you expect to find in a world as dark as a day old shiner, their love of tough guys and dangerous dames, not to mention their business savvy and their own creative talents, has put authentic pulp fiction back on bookshelves all across America.
These books my have all the subtlety of a sucker punch, but they stick with you like the memory of a jilted lover. You know the one I?m talking about. The one who ran off with your best friend. The one you vowed to make pay...
Columbia educated Ardai might seem like an unlikely hardboiled savoir, but the founder and former CEO of Internet giant Juno is almost single handedly resurrecting the spirit of classic pulp fiction. With the help of Dorchester Publishing, he and his partner Max Phillips are giving the mystery public something they haven?t had in years: hard-hitting crime fiction in the traditional paperback style ? with knockout covers by some of today?s top artists.
Last year saw offerings by mystery giants Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Ed McBain and an original novel by a guy named Steven King. Yeah, that Steven King. This year?s lineup includes authors as diverse as Madison Smartt Bell, Max Allen Collins and Pete Hamill.
Make no mistake ? this is gritty stuff. Titles like ?Say it with Bullets? and ?The Gutter and the Grave? hook you, but it?s the covers that reel you in.
Artists as renowned as Robert McGinnis, who along with some 1,200 book covers has produced movie posters for ?Barbarella? and the original James Bond films, set a noir table of sex and violence. Ardai?s own ?Little Girl Lost,? for example, published under the name Richard Aleas, features a stripper in a bra, low-rider hot pants and a gun.
But while these paperbacks may not come with the Oprah Book Club seal of approval, they are by no means disposable fiction. Already three, including ?Little Girl Lost,? have been nominated for Edgars by the Mystery Writers of America, while the Private Eye Writers of America awarded Phillips? ?Fade to Blonde? the 2005 Shamus Award for Best Paperback Novel of the Year.
Though neither Ardai nor Phillips possess the kind of back alley pedigree you expect to find in a world as dark as a day old shiner, their love of tough guys and dangerous dames, not to mention their business savvy and their own creative talents, has put authentic pulp fiction back on bookshelves all across America.
These books my have all the subtlety of a sucker punch, but they stick with you like the memory of a jilted lover. You know the one I?m talking about. The one who ran off with your best friend. The one you vowed to make pay...
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