Once upon a time Eddie played conert piano to reverent audiences at Carnegie Hall. Now he bangs out honky-tonk for drunks in a dive in Philadelphia. But then two people walk into Eddie's life--the first promising Eddie a future, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past.

Shoot the Piano Player is a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty: the kind a man owes his family, no matter how bad that family is; the kind a man owes a woman; and, ultimately, the loyalty he owes himself. The result is a moody thriller that, like the best hard-boiled fiction, carries a moral depth charge.

Today many of the old pulp crime writers have achieved success to one degree or other. Sadly, like so many artists, they had to die before anyone took their work seriously. Featuring stories by Frank Johnson, John P. Rees, Carlota M. Hardy, Frederick C. Davis, David Goodis, C.S. Montanye, Norman A. Daniels, David Manners, Edward Ronns, William O'Sullivan, Jerome Severs Perry, Neil Moran, Robert Leslie Bellem, Mat Rand, Michael Bittner, Robert Turner, Joe Archibald, David James, Henry Herbert Knibbs, Benton Braden, and Cyril Plunkett.

They Gave Him Back His Badge, and Sent Him Down Into the Brutal Throbbing Heart of the Slums. Crooked ex-cop Corey Bradford turns out to be an ideal candidate for an underground police unit known as the Night Squad. First published 1961.

He could remember the gun in his hand, the man in front of him, the shock of the explosion, and then the blood. He could remember the flight though the woods, and the satchel with the money, and now the gang of killers, closing in. But what he couldn't figure was the woman. She had been there, once, when the killers caught him, and beat him half to death. And he had found her one night with one of them in her room. She said she loved him. And he wanted her. But could he trust her?