the first 66 Hard Case Crime titles

In September of 2004, the first of what would be sixty-six mass market paperbacks were published by Hard Case Crime. Lawrence Block’s Grifter’s Game was originally published as Mona by Gold Medal in 1961. The Hard Case Crime edition, forty-three years later, was the book’s first publication under the author’s intended title. Con man Joe Marlin was used to scoring easy cash off gullible women. But that was before he met Mona Brassard -- and found himself holding a stolen stash of raw heroin. Now Joe's got to pull off the most dangerous con of his career. One that will leave him either a killer -- or a corpse.

The loner, the emotionally distant man, the character operating at the margins of society (the grifter, the con man, numbers runner, pimp, assassin, private investigator), what Charles Willeford called “the immobilized man” has always fascinated American authors. Crime, murder and mayhem, propel the ploy. Crime novels of the forties and fifties were a golden age, in my opinion, of this popular entertainment – a journey into the heart of darkness of man. This is a broad and deep river of American storytelling that includes Herman Melville, John Steinbeck, Jack London, Mark Twain, and Jim Tully.

Like rock and roll, crime novels of the hardboiled or noir flavor, have waxed and waned in popularity in my life. This very specific expression of genre, teased by seductive cover art, had been resurrected a couple of times since these pulps were ubiquitous as newsstands.

Barry Gifford and the Black Lizard imprint of Creative Arts Publishing knocked it out of the park with their releases.  https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf3d5n99jh/entire_text/

This publisher sparked a renewed interest in the novels of David Goodis, Charles Willeford and Jim Thompson.  These great titles were being remaindered in the early 1990s when I could first relax and read something not on a college syllabus. If you dig this genre, most anything they've published is worth seeking out.  Some of them remain in print as Random House's Vintage Crime series. 

Publisher Dennis MacMillan published very attractive limited hardcovers in this genre and a handful of paperback titles.  https://firstsmagazine.com/product/june-1999/   MacMillan, a one man operation that moved around a bit, had published sporadically and was winding down operations when Hard Case Crime books made their debut.  His limited edition hardcovers were sometimes the affordable option to read some of the Charles Willeford titles that were lost to time. 

Hard Case Crime’s original run ended in August 2010.  These first sixty-six books were published by Dorchester Publishing, guided by the vision of author Charles Ardai. Hardboiled crime fiction with original cover art in the pulp style. The covers are the hook.  They used artists whose work has long graced paperbacks, like Robert McGinnis. They consulted with others including the legendary Robert Maguire. Drew Struzan, Larry Schwinger and Chuck Pyle. The black gun, red crown on a yellow ribbon is a logo to rival the best of the pulps.  Originally issued as mass market paperbacks at an attractive price point, these titles were the resuscitation of the original spirit.  Not pricier trade paperbacks with a fancy foreword, not limited edition, signed hardcovers, this was high art, packaged and priced right.

Some of the titles that they published were paperback originals, written today in the spirit of the hardboiled genre.  Some had not been in print in fifty years.  Stephen King’ The Colorado Kid was the thirteenth title published and the series’ best seller was published for the first time by Hard Case Crime. They reprinted books that Michael Crichton wrote under the name John Lange. They reprinted titles by Arthur Conan Doyle,  Erle Stanley Gardner, Lawrence Block, and Cornell Woolrich. They also published new writing by Jason Starr, Ken Bruen and Christa Faust, all solidly within this tradition, not but nostalgic or derivative.  

The series was sold to Titan Books in 2011, and still sticks to its vision of great hardboiled authors paired with sexy pulp-style cover art.  Hard Case Crime still publishes great titles, still a mix of reprints and paperback originals. They’ve moved on from mass market paperbacks to trade paperback and hardcover editions, and in the case of Stephen King’s Joyland, a signed, illustrated limited edition.  Much appreciated titles, but I hold those first sixty-six bangers dearly.

I have most of the original run in stock and for sale.