Pulp Covers

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Hard Case Crime is dedicated to reviving the vigor and excitement, the suspense and thrills—the sheer entertainment—of the golden age of paperback crime novels, both by bringing back into print the best work of the pulp era and by introducing readers to new work by some of today's most powerful writers and artists. Determined detectives and dangerous women... fortune hunters and vengeance seekers... ingenious criminals and men on the run... Hard Case Crime novels offer everything you want from a great story, all in handsome and affordable editions.

Hard Case publishes great books with amazing covers. I have featured a few of their titles here before, but I was not having much luck finding decent scans of most of their covers. So, I wrote to the editor, Charles Ardai, and asked for the original cover images. And he actually said yes! Charles is a man who clearly appreciates pulp cover art, as you can see in this extensive interview he did with Killer Covers, and he has put together an peerless collection of covers from some of the best artists working today.

So, I am proud to present what might be a PulpCovers.com exclusive: the complete collection of Hard Case Crime covers in their original, digital, non-scanned glory. Enjoy!

She was beautiful. He was damned.

1931—The body found in the gutter in France led the police inspector to the dead man’s beautiful daughter—and to her hot-tempered American husband.

1941—A hardboiled private eye hired to keep a movie studio’s leading lady happy uncovers the truth behind the brutal slaying of a Hollywood starlet.

1951—A desperate man pursuing his last chance at redemption finds himself with blood on his hands and the police on his trail...

Three complete novels that, taken together, tell a single epic story, about an author whose life is shattered when violence and tragedy consume the people closest to him.

Rose McGowan posed for the cover painting

via Hard Case Crime

There's no glamour in the grave.

Newspaperman Adam Jordan’s byline ran above two big articles in the early editions. One of them got him fired. The other landed him a job writing true crime pieces for Real Detective magazine. The story he’s working on now—a beauty contestant found strangled on an Atlantic City beach—is one that boardwalk power brokers would rather see covered up then covered. And if Adam keeps digging, he may find that he’s digging his own grave...

via Hard Case Crime

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strange-embrace-xxFzcdhjJtfHqFfpCvJj.zip (4.18 MB)

Life On The Stage -- And Death Behind The Scenes

They say the show must go on—but in the case of Broadway’s next sensation, A Touch of Squalor, someone’s out to make sure the show never opens. And when threats don’t do the trick, a straight razor to the throat just might.

It’s a case for the NYPD...but with a mysterious killer targeting his cast, producer Johnny Lane can’t just wait in the wings. There’s a Playbill full of suspects, giving Johnny the casting challenge of his career: who to put in the role of murderer, when the wrong call could bring down the curtain on his show—or his life!

Published as part of a "Double Novel" with another Lawrence Block story, 69 Barrow Street.

via Hard Case Crime Painting via Heritage Auctions

At The Intersection Of Sin And Madness...

Greenwich Village: home to every form of depravity and perversion known to man...or woman.

It’s on the streets of the Village that Ralph met Stella—but what started as a love affair between a painter and his seductive muse has become torment as he’s found himself drawn into her world of cruel pleasures. It's a tinderbox of hatred and desire—and when beautiful Susan Rivers moves into their apartment building, tempting Ralph and Stella both, it’s set to ignite.

From dim waterfront bars to the movie houses of Times Square, from nights in rat-trap hotel rooms to drug-fueled orgies in ground-floor apartments, no one can bring 1960s New York to life like Edgar Award winner Lawrence Block. And in this early tale of psychological suspense—unavailable for fifty years and never before published under his real name—readers will discover a harrowing portrait of men and women pushed to their limits and beyond. It’s a double shot of darkness as only Lawrence Block can deliver it.

Published as part of a "Double Novel" with another Lawrence Block story, Strange Embrace.

The original Paul Rader cover is here.

via Hard Case Crime

The Money Was Counterfeit -- But The Danger Was Real!

Set A Fake To Catch A Fake

Somewhere in Philadelphia, a master engraver is turning out brilliant forgeries of U.S. currency plates for organized crime. To bring the operation down from the inside, the government sends an agent undercover posing as a West Coast crime lord’s right-hand man. It’s a dangerous game of impersonation—one that could prove fatal when the agent’s secret begins to unravel...

via Hard Case Crime

Comedy is easy. Dying is hard

But Seriously, Folks

The year is 1977, and America is finally getting over the nightmares of Watergate and Vietnam and the national hangover that was the 1960s. But not everyone is ready to let it go. Not aging comedian Koo Davis, friend to generals and presidents and veteran of countless USO tours to buck up American troops in the field. And not the five remaining members of the self-proclaimed People’s Revolutionary Army, who’ve decided that kidnapping Koo Davis would be the perfect way to bring their cause back to life...

via Hard Case Crime

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choke-hold-bajfIsFllyxDpdgbdzBC.zip (3.53 MB)

Every Fighter Needs An Angel In His Corner. 

Angel Dare went into Witness Protection to escape her past—not as a porn star, but as a killer who took down the sex slavery ring that destroyed her life. But sometimes the past just won’t stay buried. When a former co-star is murdered, it’s up to Angel to get his son, a hotheaded MMA fighter, safely through the unforgiving Arizona desert, shady Mexican bordertowns, and the seductive neon mirage of Las Vegas...

Sequel to Money Shot, via Hard Case Crime

She consumed men like fire—but what a way to burn...

Compared to the $40 million the cops think he stole, seventy-five thousand dollars may not sound like much. But it’s all the money in the world to the struggling Cuban exiles of Miami who rescued Morgan the Raider. So when it’s snatched by a man the Cubans trusted, Morgan sets out to get it back. A simple favor—but as the bodies pile up...dead men and beautiful women...the Raider wonders what kind of Latin hell he's gotten himself into, and just who or what is the mysterious Consummata?

via Hard Case Crime

You Never Forget Your First

HOMICIDE BEGINS AT HOME Even the enigmatic hit man called Quarry had to start somewhere. And for him that was the day he returned stateside from Nam to find his young wife cheating. He’d killed plenty overseas, so killing her lover was no big deal. And when he was recruited to use his skills as a contract killer, that transition was easy, too. He survived in this jungle as he had in that other one—by expecting trouble. What he didn't expect was ever running into her again...

via Hard Case Crime

A Novel of Sex & Violence

So this girl walks into a bar... ...and when she walks out there’s a man with her. She goes to bed with him, and she likes that part. Then she kills him, and she likes that even better.
On her way out, she cleans out his wallet. She keeps moving, and has a new name for each change of address. She’s been doing this for a while, and she’s good at it. And then a chance remark gets her thinking of the men who got away, the lucky ones who survived a night with her. 
She starts writing down names. And now she’s a girl with a mission. Picking up their trails. Hunting them down. Crossing them off her list...

via Hard Case Crime

Time hadn’t tamed her...and neither could he!

Ten years ago, private eye Mike Shayne did a job for one of the richest men in El Paso, digging up dirt on a boy courting the tycoon’s daughter. Now the daughter’s back, all grown up and dangerous. And so’s Shayne—but this time it’s to investigate murder...

via Hard Case Crime

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nobody-s-angel-vkBcynBJjhpvfifvBxGD.zip (3.55 MB)

Take A Cab Ride Into The Heart Of Murder

Eddie Miles is one of a dying breed: a Windy City hack who knows every street and back alley of his beloved city and takes its recent descent into violence personally. But what can one driver do about a killer targeting streetwalkers or another terrorizing cabbies? Precious little—until the night he witnesses one of them in action...

via Hard Case Crime Painting via oldcarguy41

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memory-mIvewljHkkjvlurJzDoh.zip (605 KB)

The Crime Was Over In A Minute— The Consquences Lasted A Lifetime

Hospitalized after a liaison with another man’s wife ends in violence, Paul Cole has just one goal: to rebuild his shattered life. But with his memory damaged, the police hounding him, and no way even to get home, Paul’s facing steep odds—and a bleak fate if he fails...

via Hard Case Crime Painting via Glen Orbik