From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by “the seminal and venerated mystery pulp magazine” (Booklist).

Otto Penzler selected and wrote introductions to the best of the best, the darkest of these dark, vintage stories for the collection The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories. Now that collection is available for the first time on audio.

Includes: “Bracelets” by Katherine Brocklebank; read by Carol Monda“Diamonds Mean Death” by Thomas Walsh; read by Alan Sklar“Murder in the Ring” by Raoul Whitfield; read by Jeff Gurner“The Parrot That Wouldn’t Talk” by Walter C. Brown; read by Pete Larkin“Let the Dead Alone” by Merle Constiner; read by Oliver Wyman