New This Week

As I mentioned, last week was unusual. This week I have only three new books to talk about . . . but they look like good ones.

Paul Cain – THE COMPLETE SLAYERS. This is a beautiful limited edition from Centipede Press that reprints Cain's novel FAST ONE (in its original form as published in BLACK MASK) and all of his shorter fiction. It includes a lengthy biographical introduction by editors Lynn F. Myers Jr. and Max Allan Collins that reveals quite a bit of new information about the mysterious Paul Cain, including his real name. The book is signed by Myers, Collins, and artist Ron Lesser, who provided the great cover and several interior illustrations.

Max Allan Collins (again) – DICK TRACY: THE COLLINS CASEFILES, VOLUME 1. This handsome trade paperback reprints the first three storylines by Collins when he took over the writing duties on the Dick Tracy comic strip in 1977. Tracy is a longtime favorite of mine, but I haven't read these stories yet and I'm looking forward to them.

Matthew P. Mayo – WRONG TOWN. This is a new e-book edition of a Western novel originally published a few years ago in England by Robert Hale as part of the Black Horse Western line. My review of it will be coming up in a few days.