Many of the crime writing's top suspects are rounded up for The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories, edited by Penzler. Concentrating on stories from the greatest crime pulp of them all, this long-awaited collection of stories (a sequel of sorts to Penzler’s 2007 The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps), deals out a winning hand of over 50 hardboiled stories and complete novels from some of the greatest pulp writers to ever pound a typewriter, including Dashiell Hammett (whose "The Maltese Falcon" appears in the original—and much-different—serialized version), Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gardner, of course, but also hard-to-find treasures from Raoul Whitfield, John D. MacDonald, Frederick Nebel, Lester Dent, Norbert Davis, Carroll John Daly, Paul Cain, Steve Fisher, James M. Cain and Horace McCoy. No tea cups, no cats—tough as a two-buck steak and gritty as a sandpaper massage, this is where your crime lover’s hardboiled education begins.