July 1940 issue
T.T. Flynn, “The Bookie and the Blonde” (Mr. Maddox)
Leslie T. White, “One-Way Street”
Jan Dana, “The Murder Was a Pleasure” (Acme Indemnity Op)
John K. Butler, “The Man from Alcatraz” (Steve Midnight)
Hugh B. Cave, “He Didn’t Know Nothin’“ (Officer Coffey)
better image than previously posted
cover art by Malvin Singer
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John K. Butler, “Gallows Ghost” (Tricky Enright)
John Lawrence, “The Corpse That Came to Call”
Leslie T. White, “Lullaby in Lead” (Duke Martindell)
Robert Sidney Bowen, “Dead Takes the Air” (Kip Lacey)
O.B. Myers, “The Black Room”
Malvin Singer, “She Found the Mutilated Forearm”
cover art by John Drew
better image than previously posted
~ Russell Bender, “Heat Target”, ‘mayor of a small Maryland town’, 1st of 3 stories in BM
~ John K. Butler, “No Rest for Soldiers”, ‘WWI vets, bonuses & Russ McGregor’, 5th of 11 stories in BM
~ Lester Dent, “Sail”, 1st Oscar Sale story, set in Miami, 1st of 2 stories in BM, reprinted The Hard-Boiled Detective (1977), earlier version of this story reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage, 2010) as “Luck”. “Sail” and “Luck” reprinted in Luck: The Complete Black Mask Cases of Oscar Sail (Steeger Books, 2021).
~ Roger Torrey, “Jail Bait”, ‘1st (of 14) in Pat McCarthy series, with Marge Chalmers often his “sidekick”; he is ex-NYC cop, ex-agency man (Chicago & St. Louis) who dislikes cops’, 21st of 50 appearances in BM
©Seattle Mystery Bookshop
cover art by John Drew
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~ William Donald Bray, “A Keg of Muscatel”, ‘murder at a winery’, last of 12 stories in BM
~ John K. Butler, “’G” – Heat”, ‘‘Brick’ Hammond, G-man’, 1st of 11 stories in BM
~ Raymond Chandler, “Spanish Blood”, LAPD Delaguerra, first book reprint in the anthology Five Murderers (Avon digest, 1944), first hardcover appearance, The Simple Art of Murder (Houghton Mifflin, 1950), 5th of 11 stories in BM
~ Frederick L. Nebel, “Winter Kill”, 32nd of 37 with Captain Steve MacBride and local reporter Kennedy, 61 of 67 stories in BM, reprinted in The Hardboiled Dicks (1965), reprinted in Winter Kill: Complete Cases of MacBride & Kenney, v.4 (Altus, 2013)
~ Theodore A. Tinsley, “Five Spot”, ‘14th (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’, 15th of 26 stories in BM
©Seattle Mystery Bookshop
[cover updated 11/8/25]
cover art by John Drew
better image than previously posted
~ John K. Butler, “Guns for a Lady”, ‘ex-pug, 1st-person narrator; bodyguard for girl’, 2nd of 11 stories in BM
~ Paul Cain, “Pineapple”, ‘Nick Green & Blondie Kessler, police-reporter’, later released as one of the Seven Slayers (1950 Avon), reprinted in The Complete Slayers (2011 Centipede Press), 16th of 17 stories in BM
~ Raymond Chandler, “The Man Who Liked Dogs”, ‘1st of 4 Carmady stories, reprinted in The Hard-Boiled Omnibus (1946)‘ [Simon & Schuster, first hardcover and first book appearance], and Killer in the Rain (Hammish hc, 1964), 7th of 11 stories in BM
~ George Harmon Coxe, “You Gotta Be Tough”, 1st of 4 stories with Paul Baron, 16th of 31 stories in BM
~ Thomas Walsh, “Diamonds Mean Death”, ‘Joe Keenan, private copper’, reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage, 2010), last of 6 stories in BM
~ Edward S. Williams, “Death Has Green Eyes”, ‘Mike Dunneen, private ‘tec’, 1st of 8 appearances in BM
©Seattle Mystery Bookshop
[cover updated 10/27/25]
cover art by Walter Baumhofer
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Carroll John Daly, “The Mark of the Raven” (Vee Brown)
Frederick Nebel, “Blood in the Dark” (Cardigan)
John K. Butler, “Seven Years Dead” (Tricky Enright)
Frederick C. Davis, “The Case of the Crazy Witness” (Carter Cole, MD)
Leo Stalnaker, “Black Widow’s Night”
[cover updated 4/22/26]
SMB Noir 