An anthology culled from "Black Mask" magazine is a tribute to its mastery of the pulp noir genre that includes such stories as "Murder Is Bad Luck" and "Diamonds Mean Death" as well as two full-length novels including Paul Cain's "Fast One."

Come and get it /Erle Stanley Gardner -- Cry silence / Fredric Brown -- Arson plus / Peter Collinson -- Fall guy / George Harmon Coxe -- Doors in the dark / Frederick Nebel -- Luck / Lester Dent -- The Maltese falcon / Dashiell Hammett -- Ten carats of lead / Stewart Sterling -- Murder is bad luck / Wyatt Blassingame -- Her dagger before me / Talmadge Powell -- One shot / Charles G. Booth -- The dancing rats / Richard Sale -- Bracelets / Katherine Brocklebank -- Diamonds mean death / Thomas Walsh -- Murder in the ring / Raoul Whitfield -- The parrot that wouldn't talk / Walter C. Brown -- Let the dead alone / Merle Constiner -- Knights of the Open Palm / Carroll John Daly -- Waiting for Rusty / William Cole -- Rainbow diamonds / Ramon Decolta -- The ring on the hand of death / William Rollins, Jr. -- Body snatcher / Theodore A. Tinsley -- Murder on the Gayway / Dwight V. Babcock -- The key / Cleve F. Adams -- The bloody bokhara / William Campbell Gault -- A taste for cognac / Brett Halliday -- Sauce for the gander / Day Keene -- A little different / W. T. Ballard -- The shrieking skeleton / Charles M. Green -- Drop dead twice / Hank Searles -- The sound of the shot / Dale Clark -- Flaming angel / Frederick C. Davis -- Odds on death / Don M. Mankiewicz -- Those Catrini / Norvell Page -- Smoke in your eyes / Hugh B. Cave -- Blood, sweat and biers / Robert Reeves -- The black bottle / Whitman Chambers -- The corpse didn't kick / Milton K. Ozaki -- Try the girl / Raymond Chandler -- Don't you cry for me / Norbert Davis -- T. McGuirk steals a diamond / Ray Cummings -- Wait for me / Steve fisher -- Ask me another / Frank Gruber -- Dirty work / Horace McCoy -- Merely murder / Julius Long -- Murder in one syllable / John D. MacDonald -- Three apes from the East / H. H. Stinson -- Death stops payment / D.L. Champion -- The color of honor / Richard Connell -- Middleman for murder / Bruno Fischer -- The man who chose the devil / Richard Deming -- Beer-bottle polka / C.M. Kornbluth -- Borrowed crime / Cornell Woolrich.