Hardboiled Detective

Started in the 1920s and perfected in the 1930s, the hard boiled detective was one of the most popular forms to arise from the pulp fiction magazines.

The hard boiled detective was a character who had to live on the mean streets of the city where fighting, drinking, swearing, poverty and death were all part of life. This new type of detective had to balance the day to day needs of survival against the desire to uphold the law and assist justice. Living in the toughest of environments, and required to be tougher than the evil surrounding him, our new heroes had to become "hard boiled".

In this new world, the hard boiled detective began to administer a new form of justice where if need be, he himself would cross the line and break the law, to insure that justice was done. Our hero was thrust into a world where he had to choose between different levels of evil and no one was truely on the side of good. His survival often depended upon a shoot first, ask questions later approach where the ability to reason out a murder is less important than the ability to fight one's way out of a jam.

This ushered in a new era of action packed detective stories where the murder no longer took place off stage and instead took place all around our hero on an ongoing basis. In some respects, the hard boiled detective was in response to the rising crime and gangster activety caused by Prohibition and then the Great Depression. But once Carroll John Daly introduced us to Race Williams, and Dashiell Hammett introduced us to Sam Spade, the world of detective fiction changed forever.

Featured Authors:

• Carroll John Daly
• Dashiell Hammett
• Raymond Chandler

 

• A Comprehensive Index to Black Mask, 1920-1951
• Detective 3-Pack #1
• Detective 3-Pack #2
• Detective 3-Pack #3
• Detective 3-Pack Vol #2
• Detective 3-Pack Vol #3
• Fade to Blonde
• Fallen Angels
• Farewell My Lovely
• Footprints On A Brain
• Gallows Heritage: Surgeon of Souls Vol. 2
• Hardboiled in Hollywood
• Hardboiled Mystery Writers
• High Adventure #60: Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective
• Make Your Own Corpse
• More Tales of the Defective Detective
• Murder From The East
• Nightmare Town
• Oh, Murderer Mine
• Oxford Book American Detectives
• Playback
• Poodle Springs
• Ready To Burn
• Replica: Black Mask June 1923
• Replica: Dan Turner -- Hollywood Detective # 1
• Reprint: Detective Short Stories November 1937
• Reprint: Gangland Detective Stories Sept. 1940
• Reprint: Headquarters Detective March 1937
• Reprint: Lone Wolf Detective Oct. 1940
• Reprint: Phantom Detective: Emperor of Death
• Reprint: Red Mask Detective Stories March, 1941
• Reprint: The Black Mask #2
• Sally's in the Alley
• Secret Agent X-9 Starring Lloyd Bridges
• Tainted Power
• The Amateur Murder
• The Big Knockover
• The Big Sleep
• The Black Warning
• The Defective Detective in the Pulps
• The Dime Novel Detective
• The Emperor of Evil
• The Hidden Hand
• The High Window
• The Long Goodbye
• The Men in Black
• The Mike Hammer Collection Volume #1
• The Mike Hammer Collection Volume #2
• The Mouse in the Mountain
• The Mystery of the Smoking Gun
• The Quires Matter: A McGowan For Hire Mystery
• The Shadow Man
• The Swinging Corpse
• The Third Murderer
• The White Headed Corpse
• Trouble Is My Business
• Undercover Detective: Crime of the Century: Feb. 1939
• Used: The Hardboiled Dicks

 

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