Crime Novels of the 1960s

Library of America presents a deluxe edition of unforgettable crime thrillers of the 1960s

Here in two volumes are 9 timeless novels, including 4 lost classics now restored to print

In the 1960s a number of gifted writers—some at the peak of their careers, others newcomers—reimagined American crime fiction. Here are nine novels of astonishing variety and inventiveness that pulse with the energies of that turbulent, transformative decade:

• Fredric Brown’s The Murderers (1961), a darkly comic look at a murderous plot hatched on the hip fringes of Hollywood.
• Dan J. Marlowe’s terrifying The Name of the Game Is Death (1962), about a nihilistic career criminal on the run
• Charles Williams’s Dead Calm (1963), a masterful novel of natural peril and human evil on the high seas.
• Dorothy B. Hughes’s The Expendable Man (1963), an unsettling tale of racism and wrongful accusation in the American Southwest.
• Richard Stark’s taut The Score (1964), in which the master thief Parker plots the looting of an entire city with the cool precision of an expert mechanic.
• The Fiend (1964), in which Margaret Millar maps the interlocking anxieties of a seemingly tranquil California suburb through the rippling effects of a child’s disappearance.
• Ed McBain’s classic police procedural Doll (1965), a breakneck story that mixes murder, drugs, fashion models, and psychotherapy with the everyday professionalism of the 87th Precinct.
• Run Man Run (1966), Chester Himes’s nightmarish tale of racism and police violence that follows a desperate young man seeking safe haven in New York City while being hunted by the law.
• Patricia Highsmith’s ultimate meta-thriller, The Tremor of Forgery (1969), a novel in which a displaced traveler finds his own personality collapsing as he attempts to write a novel about a man coming undone.

Each volume features an introduction by editor Geoffrey O’Brien (Hardboiled America), newly researched biographies of the writers and helpful notes, and an essay on textual selection.