This time, we have a rare mystery from Hulbert Footner (whose Madame Storey mysteries I greatly enjoy). His novel Queen of Clubs in this issue is a jazz-age mystery that—well, I don’t want to spoil the surprises. Read it and see for yourself!Also on the mystery front, we have original tales by Andrew Welsh-Huggins and Robert Lopresti (thanks to our Acquiring Editors, Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman), a classic crime story by David Goodis, and, of course, a solve-it-yourse...

This week, we have original tales from Veronica Leigh (thanks to Acquiring Editor Michael Bracken) and Phyllis Ann Karr, plus great modern tales from Simon Wood (thanks to Acquiring Editor Barb Goffman) and Norman Spinrad. Plus the usual range of classics which you (hopefully) haven’t seen before. Good stuff!

Roy Childers is a detective who has tried to stay clean in a corrupt police force. He becomes obsessed with finding escaped convict Dice Nolan. But his stakeout leads him into an illicit affair and a fierce jealousy that causes him to lose control. When the truth about a murder emerges, Childers plunges into darkness, realizing that the line between right and wrong is not always clear. A gripping psychological noir exploring the fall of a moral man.

David Goodis (1917–1967) was an American crime fiction writer noted for his noir novels and short stories. His 1951 novel CASSIDY'S GIRL draws on his life in Philadelphia, where he prowled the underside of city life, frequenting nightclubs and seedy bars. He translated his experiences into a string of dark crime novels. CASSIDY'S GIRL sold more than a million copies upon its release.

Welcome to Black Cat Weekly #52.This week, our acquiring editors have outdone themselves—Michael Bracken has an original story by William Burton McCormick, “House of Tigers,” which was a Black Orchid Novella Award finalist. Though it didn’t win, it’s a great story. (Competition is fierce for this particular award, since it judged by Linda Landrigan, editor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. I won the first Black Orchid for my story “Horse Pit,” and I haven’t dared ent...

When Hart, a desperate man running from the law, finds a man in the street dying of a gunshot wound, things only go from bad to worse. He is taken in by the gang who murdered the man. As as the cops close in, he finds himself is trapped in a small house with these violent men and vicious women.

A tale of love, alcoholism, murder, crime, and a dismal street life in big city. A lurid pulp detective thriller.

In David Goodis's bruising crime novel The Secret Squad, Corey Bradford is on the skids and on a quick trip to boozeland. He was a plainclothes cop who got caught with his hands in pockets where they didn't belong and he was pushed out the precinct door. But he was still just as fast with his mitts as he was his wits, and others took notice. Such as mob kingpin Walter Grogan, a man who didn't take no for an answer. But Bradford is also recruited by the notorious Night Squad, a secret arm o...

David Goodis is known for authoring novels about the depressing, hopeless side of life. Night Squad, first published in 1961, is no exception. Corey Bradford has lived his entire life in a rundown, rat infested neighborhood called The Swamp. This is a place devoid of hope. Alcoholism, poverty and crime are rampant.

In Street of No Return (1954), David Goodis presents a skid row odyssey in which a famous crooner scarred by violence descends into dereliction. From its opening in the freezing wind of a November street corner through its explosive ending,

Hunted for a priceless sapphire he recently acquired, Clayton hides in a seedy Ceylon bar, relying on his friend Kroner for escape. But Clayton's toxic history with the gem's ruthless seeker Rudy Hagen and Hagen's lover Alma soon erupts. When Alma makes a mysterious late-night visit, passions flare, trusts twist, and Clayton must risk everything in a breakdown ofcrossed signals, guns, and greed. Will Clayton wager the stone and his life for the woman who once scorned him?

For the first time, the best work of a distinctive master of American noir is available in authoritative e-book editions from The Library of America. David Goodis experienced a brief celebrity when his novel Dark Passage (1946) became the basis for a popular movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. The story of a man railroaded for his wife’s murder and forced to assume a different identity after escaping from prison becomes in Goodis’s hands a lyrical evocation of urban ...