
Black Mask 11: Middleman for Murder
And Other Crime Fiction from the Legendary Magazine
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Narrated by:
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Bart Tinapp
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Scott Brick
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Eric Conger
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Johnny Heller
About this listen
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:
- "The Color of Honor" by Richard Connell; read by Bart Tinapp
- "Middleman for Murder" by Bruno Fischer; read by Scott Brick
- "The Man Who Chose the Devil" by Richard Deming; read by Eric Conger
- "Beer-Bottle Polka" by C. M. Kornbluth; read by Johnny Heller
- "Borrowed Crime" by Cornell Woolrich; read by Johnny Heller
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Critic reviews
Black Mask Stories
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Sensitive listeners might wish to skip "The Color Of Honor," a story that's oddly out of place amongst the others, but is virulently racist even as author Richard Cornell tried not to be. There's so much n-word usage that it's painful. Not one of Penzler's smartest selections.
Mostly excellent writing, excellent performances, but that first story drags the collection down.
It's very much of its time, making it a hard listen at times
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