Description: 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: "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett; read by Jeff Gurner"Cry Silence" by Frederic Brown; read by Oliver Wyman"Waiting for Rusty" by William Cole; read by Pete Larkin
Brief description: Pete Larkin is an AudioFile Earphones Award winner and a 2014 Audie Award finalist. He has wide voice-over and on-camera experience and has worked in virtually all media. He was the public address announcer for the New York Mets from 1988 to 1993. He has worked as a disc jockey in Baltimore, Washington, and New York, including as host of WNEW-FM's highly rated "Saturday Morning Sixties" program. An award-winning on-camera host, Pete has worked on many industrial films for many of the country's top companies, corporations, and governmental agencies and has done hundreds of commercials, promos, and narrations. His theater experience includes a variety of dramatic, comedic, and musical roles.