Packed solid with seven decades of pulp action and peopled by shady operators, voluptuous molls, ruthless big shots, crooked cops, and gruff private eyes, this new collection of hard-boiled tales includes classics by such masters of the craft as Dashiell Hammett, Robert Leslie Bellem, Cornell Woolrich, and Erle Stanley Gardner, as well as some of the best modern crime fiction to be published by postwar giants like John D. MacDonald, Ross McDonald, Ed McBain, Charles Willeford, David Goodis, and James Ellroy.