Black Mask 9: The Corpse Didn't Kick

And Other Crime Fiction from the Legendary Magazine

By: Otto Penzler - Editor, Eric Conger

Narrated by: Carol Monda, Alan Winter

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.

• “The Black Bottle” by Whitman Chambers; read by Bart Tinapp
• “The Corpse Didn't Kick” by Milton K. Ozaki; read by Bart Tinapp
• “Try the Girl” by Raymond Chandler; read by Scott Brick
• “Don't You Cry for Me” by Norbert Davis; read by Eric Conger
• “T. McGuirk Steals a Diamond” by Ray Cummings; read by Alan Winter
• “Wait for Me” by Steve Fisher; read by Carol Monda
• “Ask Me Another” by Frank Gruber; read by Jeff Woodman

©2010 Compilation by 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)

“ Black Mask lives... Read by top-notch performers.” ( BookPage)

Old school crime fiction, but mostly good

The usual caveat: of their time, with some jarring notes sounded. This is a middling set of stories (drawn from the enormous Black Mask print anthology) but does have some humour and a couple of twists for those who like them. "Ask Me Another" wouldn't have been out of place in the Ellery Queen magazine, meanwhile.