cover image A Century of Noir: Thirty-Two Classic Crime Stories

A Century of Noir: Thirty-Two Classic Crime Stories

Various. New American Library, $16 (400pp) ISBN 978-0-451-20596-4

Shamus-winner Max Allan Collins and crime-novel king Mickey Spillane team up to co-edit A Century of Noir: Thirty-two Classic Crime Stories, a collection that includes tales by the aforementioned as well as by luminaries such as Chester Himes, James M. Cain, Donald E. Westlake, Sara Paretsky and Evan Hunter. It may not actually span a century, but this volume offers plenty of blood, booze and cigarette smoke in worlds populated by flinty men and fetching women.