The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics

This hefty brick of a paperback, edited by Paul Gravett, is like a warning tossed through the plate glass window complacency of all those skinny, over-priced little graphic "novels" that offer a lot of overblown pretentious artwork and precious little actual plot.
You want story? This collections offers a virtual who's who tour of crime comics from the forties to the present, offering samples of everything from Will Eisner's The Spirit to Collins' and Beatty's Ms. Tree. The earliest selection is a dry run of Spillane's Mike Hammer ("Mike Lancer and the Syndicate of Death" from 1942) and winds its way to the present, offering mostly complete stories (or story arcs, in the case of strips) of such familiar classics as Dashiell Hammett and Alex Raymond's Secret Agent X-9. 

Sure, even clocking in at close to 500 pages, there are some glaring omissions (No Dick Tracy? No Slam Bradley? No Johnny Dynamite or 100 Bullets?), but the spattering of off-beat choices and outright rarities they offer instead (a 87th Street Precinct tale from 1962, a 1975 Alack Sinner vignette, a 1948 Simon-Kirby short) more than make up for it.

Please, please, please may this be an annual collection.

BONUS RANT: This is real deal crime -- not some dubious "noir" homage featuring some musclebound, spandexed doofus with a fedora slapped on his noggin, like Marvel's recent X Men Noir. Hell, the only spandex in evidence is worn by Charles Burns' El Borbah, the Mexican professional wresler turned private eye. And that's supposed to be a joke.

Unwrapped at Last!!!

Damn. Right after I uploaded the preliminary -- and very rough -- draft of the new "issue" of the Thrilling Detective Web Site (on Christmas Eve, no less), my health took a nosedive (&^%$# annual holiday cold!) and it's taken me until today to more or less tweak it so that it's fit for human consumption. But yes, we are now open for business.

As usual, fiction editor and Santa's Helper No. 1 Gerald So has dug through his goodie bag to come up with a fistful of hard-boiled treats, for all you good little boys and girls.

We kick off with Dick Stodghill's "Step Into My Parlor", a leisurely jaunt through the 1930s featuring his wide-eyed reporter, Bram Geary, and his considerably more jaded private eye pal/hero, Jack Eddy.

Paul Sundeson also gives us a juicy period piece featuring two buddies. "Piece by Piece" is an early 60s tour of duty through the pre-Civil Rights Big Easy that will stick to your ribs.

And just in case you think we're stuck in reverse this time out R. Narvaez gives us "El Bohemio", a taut little jaunt through the
mean streets about as dated as today's newspaper.

We've also got a very special treat for long-time fans of the genre, courtesy of the boys at HardCaseCrime. We're very pleased to present an excerpt from the new Ms. Tree novel, Deadly Beloved, by Max Allan Collins.

If, after all this time, you guys still don't know who Ms. Tree is, this is the perfect time to get a clue. Created originally as a comic book by Collins and cartoonist Terry Beatty (who did the snazzy painted illo on this issue's cover), Ms. Tree is simply one of the best -- and arguably the toughest -- private eyes to ever slip on a dress and a pair of stillettoes (what Mike Hammer did in his spare time is another story).

If you've never read anything featuring Ms. Tree, you are in for a good time -- Deadly Beloved is her first novel-length appearance in prose, a bold new retelling of her origin and hopefully, marks the return of one of the all-time great characters in detective fiction. In any medium. This is pure pulp for now people.
(Can you tell I'm a big fan?)
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Not content with short fiction? Like something a bit more substantial than a mere snippet? Here's a Christmas tip for those of you who like your P.I. fiction in longer bursts: Australian writer Susan Geason has made her third Syd Fish novel, Hook, Line and Sinker, originally penned way back in 1998, available for free on her web site.

And what would our Holiday issue be without our always popular Cheap Thrill Awards? The "Thrillies" are, of course, our annual survey of the last year in private detective fiction. As always, we're asking you what YOU think. Vote early, vote often.

Who knows? You might enjoy bering involved in something where what you think actually matters. Plus it beats having to go all the way to Iowa.

Put a bow on it. We're done.