Sixteen tales of villainy versus virtue from the Golden Age of pulp fiction and the dawn of modern crime writing.

Harlan Ellison introduces a collection of taut and muscular tales starring some of fiction's hardest-boiled criminals, crooks, deperados and rogues. Anti-heroes to a man, these are the guys who can be guaranteed to outwit the cops, make off with the dough and get the girl. Just don't get in their way.

Legendary writers you've already heard of like Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner, Cornell Woolrich and Raymond Chandler are here. Legendary writers that you should have heard of like Frederick Nebel, James M. Cain, Norbert Davis, Leslie Charteris, C. S. Montayne and Raoul Whitfield are also where they should be - with the greats.

Tailor-made for pulp novices and hard-boiled fans with a soft spot for the masters, this collection shows that some writing has an edge that time just can't dull.