The Best of Manhunt (Volume One)

Manhunt was acknowledged as the successor to Black Mask, which had stopped publishing the year before in 1951. It was a venue for high-quality crime fiction and by April of 1956 it was being billed as the "World's Best-Selling Crime-Fiction Magazine." This volume of stories is representative of Manhunt's contents and a must-read for fans of this genre.  The editor, Jeff Vorzimmer, chose to replicate the contents of the 1958 paperback "The Best from Manhunt", edited by Scott and Sidney Meredith, and of the 1959 British volume "The Bloodhound Anthology". Together these stories represent over a third of the overall content of this volume. 

The authors included in this single book reads like a rogue’s gallery of postwar mystery and mid-twentieth century short fiction giants, including: Lawrence Block, Nelson Algren, Evan Hunter (Ed McBain), Gil Brewer, Richard S. Prather, Erskine Caldwell, Donald Westlake, Frank Kane, Harlan Ellison, Mickey Spillane, David Goodis, John D. MacDonald, and Harry Whittington…and that’s only about a third of the roster.

Some stories include familiar private eye series characters including Richard S Prather’s Shell Scott and Frank Kane’s Johnny Liddell. But these are not the focus of this collection and are not indicative of the creatively diverse stories to be found here. This is a fantastic collection of stories accompanied by several essays about the history of Manhunt, including an interesting introductory piece by Lawrence Block wherein he describes his experiences with the publisher early in his phenomenal career. I enjoyed almost every one of these stories and that in itself speaks volumes considering there are 39 stories here. I chose to read one story between each novel I read so as to appreciate each on its own merits and not risk burnout from the whole batch at once. After all, most of these stories have pretty grim plots and endings with rather sordid characters.

Thankfully, there is a Volume 2 (which I am currently enjoying) along with plenty of pressure on Stark House Publishers, I’m sure, to add even more. I certainly hope so.