The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction

by Maxim Jakubowski

Offers a collection of detective stories by Dashiell Hammett, Donald E. Westlake, Ross Macdonald, Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison, and other writers

Genres: Fiction, Anthologies, Short Stories, Crime, Mystery, Pulp, Noir

586 pages, Paperback

First published May 20, 1996

About the author

Maxim Jakubowski is a crime, erotic, and science fiction writer and critic.

Jakubowski was born in England by Russian-British and Polish parents, but raised in France. Jakubowski has also lived in Italy and has travelled extensively. Jakubowski edited the science fiction anthology Twenty Houses of the Zodiac in 1979 for the 37th World Science Fiction Convention (Seacon '79) in Brighton. He also contributed a short story to that anthology. He has now published almost 100 books in a variety of areas.

He has worked in book publishing for many years, which he left to open the Murder One bookshop[1], the UK's first specialist crime and mystery bookstore. He contributes to a variety of newspapers and magazines, and was for eight years the crime columnist for Time Out and, presently, since 2000, the crime reviewer for The Guardian. He is also the literary director of London's Crime Scene Festival and a consultant for the International Mystery Film Festival, Noir in Fest, held annually in Courmayeur, Italy. He is one the leading editors in the crime and mystery and erotica field, in which he has published many major anthologies.

His novels include "It's You That I Want To Kiss", "Because She Thought She Loved Me", "The State Of Montana", "On Tenderness Express", "Kiss me Sadly" and "Confessions of a Romantic Pornographer". His short story collections are "Life in the World of Women", "Fools for Lust" and the collaborative "American Casanova". He is a regular broadcaster on British TV and radio and was recently voted the 4th Sexiest Writer of 2,007 on a poll on the crimespace website.

Reviews

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a big fan of anthologies, but hot damn, what a line-up! Only the cream of the vintage pulp fiction crop: Hammett,Cain, Gil Brewer, Thompson, Westlake, Ellison, Willeford, Joe Gores, etc.

Highlights include "Black Pudding" by David Goodis about a stew-bum on the lam hiding out with an opium addicted beauty.

"Preview of Murder" by Robert Leslie Bellem, great Hollywood private eye Kicking ass and taking names hard-boiled style all over Sunset and Vine. Bellem's a pretty funny writer.

"The Girl Behind The Hedge" by Mickey Spillane, one of the most insane short stories I've ever read, kicking O. Henry's ass with the coldest blooded twist ending ever.

Maxim Jakubowski did a great job compiling these stories. There's hardly a clinker in the bunch.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is certainly a mammoth book of pulp fiction: almost 600 pages, 32 short stories. I picked this up with some trepidation. Usually in an anthology there are a mix of stories of often variable quality and I wasn't sure if I wanted to embark on such a long journey. But I needn't have worried. From the opening introduction by editor Maxim Jakubowski to the first story by Dashiell Hammett to the final story by Donald E Westlake almost without exception these were all excellent. Great characters, well-written plots, sparkling dialogue - everything you might expect from the pulps. It's hard to pick a favourite amongst so many, but Westlake's "Ordo" was a perfect note to finish on. A story of love and loss and what-could-have-been and what-never-can-be. For lovers of pulp crime, I heartily recommend this volume.

[Jason Logue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty good collection of pulp fiction from the 40s to the 90s. I had anticipated a collection of short stories mainly from the height of pulp fiction, especially those influential on many noir films, as I am a big fan of film noir. That was not necessarily the case, but many of them had the same language, gritty characters and dark, seedy underworlds. I enjoyed most of the stories, but a few of them were intolerably long.


My favorites were:

Flight to Nowhere - Charles Williams
Cigarette Girl - James M. Cain
The Getaway - Gil Brewer
The Bloody Tide - Day Keene
A Candle for the Bag Lady - Lawrence Block
Black Pudding - David Goodis
The Girl Behind the Hedge - Mickey Spillane
We Are All Dead - Bruno Fischer
The Wench is Dead - Frederic Brown
Killing Bernstein - Harlan Ellison
A Real Nice Guy - William F. Nolan
Ordo - Donald E. Westlake

[Gauchita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have ambitions to become a writer and felt the need to widen my reading. This massive anthology of crime writing looked an interesting start to something new. It contains some of the leading crime writers of their day and a few less appreciated. I found most of the stories to be easy to read, fast moving entertainment. The twisting and turning plots keep you interested. The hardboiled detective story is possibly less popular than it once was. Like westerns and war stories it belongs to a different generation that had different sensibilities. Fiction of the past comes with attitudes to sex and nationality that some find offensive. It is also very American and to an English man like me, the setting seems very alien. The book shop Murder one on the Charing Cross Road and long closed, owned by Mr Jakabowski the books editor, was a place I visited almost every Saturday for years. Never stopped on the floor, were all the crime fiction was held. I always when straight down the stairs to the basement to where science fiction was kept. I now regret my lack of interested in the main part of the shop.

[Shawn]

PLACEHOLDER REVIEWS

Armitage Trail's "Enter Scarface" is a slice-of-lowlife, as we're introduced to a young Tony Guarino "destined to be the greatest of all America’s notorious gang leaders." starting at the bottom in a poverty-ridden, crime-plagued neighborhood filled with small-time criminals, opportunities for bigger time crimes, and corrupt cops by the barrel. Tony, smart and shrewd, makes his way through this milieu taking notes as to the best way to get ahead without getting caught. Not Bad.

[Richard Gower · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED this book. Thirty-two of the pulpiest short stories by true masters of the form. Hammett, Brewer, Spillane, the Macdonalds, Ellison, Block, and Westlake, to name just a quarter of them. Long live pulp fiction! REG

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of my favorite authors from my youthful secret reading.

[Taylor R · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of stories!

[James Cambias · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun, highly readable anthology of classic and modern pulp stories. Overall, there's a good level of lurid action -- dames, tough guys who get knocked out a lot, gangsters, private eyes, mean streets, et cetera. The list of authors is a real Murderers' Row of talent.

I did find some of the story selections very odd. Robert Block is a master of horror and crime stories, but he's represented by a third-rate effort which wouldn't even make a good Scooby-Doo episode.

Reading this whole anthology over a few days did make me realize something: the "noir" pulp story is really a branch off the trunk of Romance. These aren't stories of Holmesian deduction or even gritty realistic procedurals. They're wild modern romances, more akin to Dumas than Doyle. The characters are motivated by grand passions instead of rational goals. Pulp stories are modern-day prose operas, often right down to the tragic ending.

[Jeb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another winner from the Mammoth Book series. As is the case with most anthologies, some stories stack up better than others. Nonetheless it lives up to the Mammoth title and gives a very broad selection of hardboiled crime fiction. Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, Jim Thompson, Robert Bloch and many others are represented. The dialog of these stories alone are worth the read.

[Trevor Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic read! Huge fan of pulp crime and mystery stories and this collection has some great examples of why I love them! Robert Bloch's story Death is a Vampire is an excellently crafted tale of mystery and So Young, So Fair, So Dead by John Lutz stands as one of my favorite short stories of all time. This collection is filled with gems!

[Patrick O'Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's like really big. Mammoth even. And there's pulp fiction bits in the middle. Some readable. Some not.