![]() Sinner Man was the MWA Grand Master’s first crime novel, penned in the mid 60s, which came at a time when he was ghostwriting “lesbian fiction” and other under the radar gems as the afterword from Block himself informs us. The story behind its eventual publication as the author intended is a long, labyrinthine one that rivals the search for the Maltese Falcon – the stuff of which dreams are made of, Bogie might have said. There’s plenty of Block available on Hard Case Crime and it’s Block who wrote Sinner Man, their latest release. One of their biggest signs was with Lawrence Block who penned their debut title, Grifter’s Game as well as the Matt Scudder novels like A Walk Among the Tombstones. ![]() Specialising in hardboiled noir fiction (usually with an American slant that nods in the direction of Chandler, Hammett and MacDonald), Hard Case Crime are responsible for bringing to my attention some gritty, delirious and blackly funny diamonds in the rough from new scribes to heavy hitters of the genre like James M Cain, Brett Halliday, Ed McBain, Donald E Westlake and Mickey Spillane. ![]() They look good on a shelf and make the reading voice in my head sound like Humphrey Bogart, off his guard and weary from too much whisky and twisted love interests. Perhaps this review will be a little biased… I absolutely love the Hard Case Crime imprint and find myself keeping an ear to the ground for their upcoming releases while also rummaging through used book stores for their previous ones. ![]()
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