1945 Avon digest reissue, 2nd edition
Gathers “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot,” “Goldfish,” “Guns at Cyrano’s” “Nevada Gas” and “Spanish Blood,” five mystery stories first published in Black Mask Magazine
better image than previously posted
June 1973 Ballantine reissue
cover art by Tom Adams
1977 Ballantine mass market, 3rd printing
includes:
introduction by Raymond Chandler, originally from The Simple Art of Murder (Houghton Mifflin, 1950)
“Trouble is My Business” (Dime Detective Magazine, Aug. 1939)
“Finger Man” (Black Mask Magazine, Oct. 1934)
“Goldfish” (Black Mask Magazine, June 1936)
“Red Wind” (Dime Detective Magazine, Jan. 1938)
cover art by Whistlin’ Dixie
[covers from owner’s own copies]
better image than previously posted
cover art by John Drew
~ Raymond Chandler, “Goldfish”, Carmady #2 of 4, ‘see May 1936 issue, p. 127, for comment on RC’, first book appearance Five Murderers (Avon digest, 2/3/44), reprinted in the collection Trouble is My Business (Penguin UK, 1950), The Hard-Boiled Detective, (1977), 9th of 11 stories in BM
~ George Harmon Coxe, “Fall Guy”, 17th of 27 with Flashgun Casey, reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage, 2010), 19th of 31 stories in BM
~ M.A. Gutschow, “The Wild Rose Hermit”, ‘another in the ‘Narrowest Escape’ series, see Charles E. Cox Jr.’, author’s only appearance in BM
~ Nels Leroy Jorgensen, “Two Tickets to Trinidad”, 26th of 32 with Stuart “Black” Burton, ‘square-shooting gambler from the Southwest, often entangled with the law’, 33rd of 39 stories in BM
~ Frederick L. Nebel, “Hard to Take”, 36th of 37 with Captain Steve MacBride and local reporter Kennedy, reprinted in Winter Kill: Complete Cases of MacBride & Kennedy, v.4 (Altus, 2013), 65 of 67 stories in BM
~ Theodore A. Tinsley, “Storm Signal”, ‘16th (of 25) Jerry Tracy capers, columnist on the (NYC) Planet, ‘mixer with poor and rich, the crooked and the straight, trailer of trouble and happiness’, reprinted in Murder Maze: The Complete Black Mask Cases of Jerry Tracy, vol.2 (Steeger 2022), 17th of 26 stories in BM
©Seattle Mystery Bookshop
January 1977 Vintage paperback original, 1st printing
edited and with an introduction by Herbert Ruhm
Carroll John Daly, “The False Burton Combs” (Dec, 1922)
Peter Collinson, “The Road Home” (Dashiell Hammettt, Dec, 1922)
Dashiell Hammett, “The Gutting of Couffignal” (Dec, 1925)
Norbert Davis, “Kansas City Flash” (Mar, 1933)
Frederick Nebel, “Take It and Like It” (June, 1934)
Raymond Chandler, “Goldfish” (June, 1936)
Lester Dent, “Angelfish” (Dec, 1936)
Erle Stanley Gardner, “Leg Man” (Feb, 1938)
George Harmon Coxe, “Once Around the Clock” (May, 1941)
Merle Constiner, “The Turkey Buzzard Blues” (July, 1943)
William Brandon, “It’s So Peaceful in the Country” (Nov, 1943)
Curt Hamlin, “Killer Come Home” (his only Black Mask story, July, 1948)
Paul W. Fairman, “Big-Time Operator” (his only Black Mask story, July, 1948)
Bruno Fischer, “Five O’Clock Menace” (May, 1949)
©Seattle Mystery Bookshop
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