The night noises of Greenwich Village had died away and the familiar sounds and smells of morning were beginning. There was a fragrance of freshly made coffee and frying onions. He could hear a faint tinkle of milk bottles and an occasional scuff of feet on the walk as some early rising laborer made his way to the subway. Dawn followed the swish of the water truck up Sullivan Street! A new day had begun. A day that would begin with blackmail...and end in murder.

As our 88th issue was coming together, I noticed that we have a pair of jungle adventure novels—the first Bomba the Jungle Boy story, as well as Tarzan and the Lost Empire. So I’m going to bill it as a “Special Jungle Warrior Issue” and just add that it’s a fun one. #88 also includes two original mysteries (Mark Thielman, N.M. Cedeño) plus a bunch of other great modern and classic stories (Fritz Leiber! Day Keene! George O. Smith!). I would have gladly bought Anna Tambour’s story ...

He was an ex-con walking the last steps toward freedom. He was an ex-con torn between the lust to get the man who “sent him up the river” and the vow to go straight; torn between returning to his faithful wife and his pulse-quickening Cuban mistress...As the prison gates closed behind him het met—not his wife, but the enticing Cuban. She took him to a private retreat in the woods. She was everything that he remembered.Then suddenly she was cold—cold and dead in his arms!

What's the first thing you think of doing when you find you only have months to live? Hint: it involves money. A lot of it. And it isn't yours. And the second thing...?

Black Mask, the greatest American detective magazine of all time is back with an all-new story by the creator of Doc Savage, Lester Dent. Also featuring classic hard-boiled detective stories by Horace McCoy, Wyatt Blassingame, Day Keene, Herbert Koehl, Kent Richards, Stephen McBarron, Dwight V. Babcock, Hugh B. Cave, and Edgar Franklin, all from the golden age of pulp fiction. With vintage brush illustrations by Arthur Rodman Bowker, as well as a previously-unpublished in...

Sleep with the Devil, first published in 1954, is a hard-boiled noir crime novel by prolific author Day Keene (pseudonym of Gunnar Hjerstedt, 1904-1969). The novel follows Les Ferron, a borderline sociopath who commits a series of crimes, has two girlfriends – one "good," and one "bad – and a large amount of cash. The plot has twists along the way to keep readers engaged to the very end in this taut thriller.

It would take plenty for Harry Breen to keep cool in the face of the heat the cops turned on after that double kill. But 250-grand worth of ice can do a lot of cooling!

To Kiss, or Kill, first published in 1951, is a classic noir murder mystery by Day Keene (1904-1969). Just out of the mental asylum, no one could blame heavyweight boxer, Barney Mandell, a little overindulgence at a tavern. And when a hot little number wanted to sleep with him, well it had been two years since he was a free man. But Barney remembered his wife, Gale, and thinks he told the cheap floozy that he'd have to pass. But Barney's mind hadn't been working so well la...

Alive, she was worth a fortune . . . dead, she was a racketeer’s life insurance!Mona Ambler sat in the death house with a secret that not even a decent guy like Mike Duval could extract. Just home from Korea, Mike had to go about saving the gal the hard way. Maybe she really had shot and killed a jewelry salesman, maybe she had been the no-good thieving B-girl the papers had reported, but just the same she had also been the beloved wife of Mike’s only brother.The odds were ...

The first time he killed a man Les Ferron was nervous and scared. But after that it got easier. He didn't even think about it after awhile--everything was automatic.But then Les met Amy Wayne--beautiful, innocent and rich. He couldn't kill her--and he couldn't make love to her either. All he could do was let her drive him crazy--

They showed me the bone fragments, and the charred diamond, and everything else - but I said to hell with their theory.Wilma was alive and I knew it.She had to be. The newspapers were yelling that I had murdered her!

When Jim Charters drank, he talked too much. He claimed he could get Pearl Mantinover out of the death house because he could prove she was innocent. Shooting off his mouth this time led Jim into the tightest spot of his life . . . The next morning he woke up with $10,000 in his hand and voluptuously naked Lou Tarrent in his bed. Jim was on a chase that kept him running for his life, for Lou was all woman and wouldn’t take no for an answer!