Maxima Library

Two hours of savagery, of silk and leaden lust, of sheer terror await you in the nightmare spell of these pages, this death-song.

The hardest, roughest novel of them all Fast One.

Here is the novel that goes even farther than Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler in bringing to life the savage side of America beyond the law. It is set amidst the dehumanizing desperation of the Great Depression. Its amoral hero is Kells, a cynical, icepick-sharp detective looking out for number one in a human jungle of big-time mobsters, crooked politicians, high-rolling gamblers, and high-priced women. Its action is nonstop, its realism brutally riveting, and its impact unforgettable.

The sequel to Los Angeles Noir, an award-winning Los Angeles Times bestseller.

Murder. Multiplied by Seven... equals supercharged action and breath-taking suspense in this carnivol of crime from the blood-dipped pen of Paul Cain, creator of close-lipped men whose rods did all their talking, and sultry women whose eyes were full of promises.

A woman’s lips, a red-hot ruby necklace, and danger unlimited give us a scarlet motif for PIGEON BLOOD In PARLOR TRICK, there is conjured up a master slaying to prove to you that the knife is quicker than the eye, while a swarm of ruthless killers who settle their arguments with dynamite furnish the core for the blood-chilling tale, PINEAPPLE. These are but a few of the action-packed stories you will find between these covers.

Paul Cain is a connoisseur of crime who writes in the best homicidal tradition of Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler. This is one collection of spine-tingling murder yarns that you won’t read with your back to the door.

Pulp fiction has been looked down on as a guilty pleasure, but it offers the perfect form of entertainment: the very best storytelling filled with action, surprises, sound and fury. In short, all the exhiliration of a roller-coaster ride. The 1920s in America saw the proliferation of hundreds of dubiously named but thrillingly entertaining pulp magazines in America: Black Mask, Amazing, Astounding, Spicy Stories, Ace-High, Detective Magazine, Dare-Devil Aces. It was in these luridly-coloured publications, printed on the cheapest pulp paper, that the first gems began to appear. The one golden rule for writers of pulp fiction was to adhere to the art of storytelling. Each story had to have a beginning, an end, economically-etched characters, but plenty going on, both in terms of action and emotions. Pulp magazines were the TV of their day, plucking readers from drab lives and planting them firmly in thrilling make-believe, successors...

Fifteen stories and one novel — hard-boiled classics by an undisputed master.

Following gangsters, blackmailers, and gunmen through the underbelly of 1930s America on their journeys to do dark deeds, Paul Cain’s stories are classics of his genre. The protagonists of ambiguous morality who populate Cain’s work are portrayed with a cinematic flair for the grim hardness of their world. Fast One, Cain’s only novel, was originally serialized in Black Mask in the 1930s. It introduces us to Gerry Kells, a hard-nosed criminal who still holds fast to his humanity in a Los Angeles that’s crooked to the core.

This collection presents Cain’s classic crime writing to a contemporary audience.