Blood, Guts, and Whiskey

April 19, 2010
Twenty-four gritty, violent stories of the mean streets slug their way through a third volume mostly culled from the Web zine Thuglit
(after Hardcore Hardboiled
and Sex, Thugs, and Rock & Roll
). Max Allan Collins's concise yet wide-ranging introduction traces the tough guy school of short crime fiction from Hammett writing in the pulp Black Mask
up to the current generation riffing off the films of Tarantino. Highlights include the Derringer Award–winning “The Cost of Doing Business” by Mike Penncavage, and a fistful of tales appearing for the first time anywhere from the likes of upcoming noir stars such as Dave Zeltserman (“Bad Move”) and Tom Piccirilli (“The Return of Inspiration”). For dedicated fans of the genre, this anthology is worth the money just for “Death of a Rat,” a prison yarn found in the files of the late Edward Bunker (aka Mr. Blue in Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs
), iconic author of No Beast So Fierce
. These stories are as bleak and exciting as a cold rainstorm.