Black Mask 1: Doors in the Dark
And Other Crime Fiction from the Legendary Magazine

An interesting mix of hard-boiled crime stories & I found the introductions as interesting as the stories in most cases. So much history! Very well narrated by all. The Introduction by Keith Alan Deutsch; read by Eric Conger was long & somewhat self-aggrandizing, but good. It covers the history of th......more

I think I've lost a little bit of my taste for pulp prose over time, as I found some of the tropes here a bit bland and the over-written nature of the lesser writers really slammed me in the face like a punch from a hired thug. Dashiell Hammett's story is the standout here, with almost none of the b......more

The history of Black Mask magazine is very interesting. I'd give this portion 4 stars. Unfortunately the stories don't hold up. They are interesting only as artifacts to be examined in an effort to understand the evolution of fiction in the English language.......more

We listened to this during a road trip. It was interesting from a nostalgia aspect. The expressions, and happenings of the times make this more entertaining than just the stories themselves. There is a VERY long introduction in the edition we listened to. It was fascinating to a point but we skipped......more

Terrific for lovers of pulp fiction. Lots of stories and interesting info on the authors and pulp fiction history. (Light profanity “hell” in one plot), different narrators give fo a pleasant-to-enjoyable performance. FYI: Field and Stream magazine is still published.......more