Black Mask 6: The Bloody Bokhara

And Other Crime Fiction from the Legendary Magazine

By: Otto Penzler - Editor

Narrated by: Richard Ferrone, Peter Ganim, David Ledoux

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask.

The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by “the seminal and venerated mystery pulp magazine” (Booklist).

Otto Penzler selected and wrote introductions to the best of the best, the darkest of these dark, vintage stories for the collection The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories. Now that collection is available for the first time on audio.

Includes:

• “Body Snatcher” by Theodore A. Tinsley, read by Richard Ferrone
• "Murder on the Gayway” by Dwight V. Babcock, read by David LeDoux
• “The Key” by Cleve F. Adams; read by Jeff Gurner
• “The Bloody Bokhara” by William Campbell Gault; read by Peter Ganim

©2010 Compilation: Otto Penzler. Introduction © 2010 Keith Alan Deutsch. (P)2012 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

“There is gold in every set. . . . Hitting like a tommy gun blast, these pulse-pounding collections will leave mystery hounds panting for the next installment.” ( Library Journal on Volumes 1-3)

Far from the Polish of Classic British Detection

After a solid year or so of delving ever deeper into the British Crime Classics, I noticed that several of the Black Mask series was available to we lucky members. After the comfortable (not "cozy") Country House Weekend atmosphere of the likes of E. C. Bentley, A. A. Milne, Ngaio Marsh, and Julian Symons, these hardboiled Americans were like a bucket of cold water in the face.

It was an invigorating experience. Not that I don’t enjoy a country house weekend, especially when there happens to be a corpse or two in the library. But a change of pace – no, a change of everything: attitude, vocabulary, class – is necessary once in a while if one hopes to keep the pores open and the outlook fresh. And these four gems, each read by someone who knows their craft, all repay inspection.