The Hard-Boiled Detective 1: First Series Collection

My highest recommendation for The Hard-Boiled Detective by Ben Solomon.

• Robert W. Walker, author of Cutting Edge and Grave Instinct For the first time, the original 11 yarns from Solomon’s ongoing, throw-back crime series are available in one volume. His nameless detective faces murderers, blackmailers, adulterers and racketeers-and that’s only the first story in this collection. Ten more tales cover a never-ending parade of lowlifes, misfits and suckers, all narrated by the hard-luck gumshoe in his statements to the cops. If you’re a fan of Black Mask, Chandler and Hammett, you’ll get a bang out of Solomon’s take on old-school detective fiction.

Ben Solomon draws you in like a moth to a jail cell light bulb. And then you are captured. His lean prose and jazz rhythms run from Lower Wacker Drive to the Club De Lisa. Ben Solomon raises the bar on Chicago noir.

-Dave Hoekstra, Chicago author and former patron of Mike’s Cop Bar