PAPERBACK CONFIDENTIAL: Crime Writers of the Paperback Era by Brian Ritt

These are the authors who turned out the dark noirs and hardboiled thrillers, private detective puzzles and psychological suspense, police procedurals and backwood melodramas, stories of passion... and cold-blooded murder. 132 profiles of the men and women who wrote the books that became the backbone of the Pulp and Paperback Era from the 1930s through the 1960s.

Here you will find information on the acknowledged masters like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain and Cornell Woolrich....and the rack mainstays like Gil Brewer, Brett Halliday, Day Keene and Charles Williams...plus the more obscure, ripe for rediscovery, like Malcolm Braly, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, Ennis Willie and Douglas Sanderson.

Each profile contains details about the author's life and explores key works, with special attention paid to series characters. Also covered are screenplay and teleplay work, as well as movies based on the authors' stories.

Paperback Confidential also includes a handy PseudoDex with all the various names these authors wrote under, and a section for each author with further recommendations for the reader's consideration.