"Somebody always takes it about as far as it’ll go, and no one took the hard-boiled farther than Paul Cain. Cain’s entire contribution to the genre — a slim novel and 14 stories, some of which haven’t seen print since the 1930s — is now available as The Complete Slayers from Centipede Press."
Over at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Noir Editor Boris Dralyuk discusses the career of Paul Cain, one of my favorite hardboiled writers. Check it out!
He gets lumped in with Hammett and his contemporaries but he's better suited as a trendsetter for the next generation -- Dan Marlowe and Donald Westlake.
ReplyDeleteDan, that's an interesting comment and I'm not sure I agree. I've read alot of BLACK MASK fiction and I see Hammett and Chandler as the best with Paul Cain close behind. His work is ultra tough, maybe too hardboiled but certainly of high quality.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the book if available for pre-order on amazon.com at a heavy discount. Centepede Press publishes limited edition books and normally this edition would cost $75. But Amazon has it for $45.84. This is a bargain and I would advise anyone interested in Paul Cain to buy it because it may go out of print real fast.