The Complete Cases of Johnny Cass

One of Black Mask editor Joe Shaw's "Black Mask Boys," author Roger Torrey haunted the pages of that venerable magazine for a half decade. Considered by his peers as amongst the top tier of Black Mask writers alongside Raymond Chandler, Torrey was on top of his game in the mid-1930s. As fellow Black Mask scribe Steve Fisher remarked, [Torrey was] "probably one of the finest writers Black Mask ever had." However, Torrey made a brief foray to Black Mask's chief rival, Dime Detective, to pen the tales of Los Angeles private eye Johnny Cass, written in Torrey's classic gritty, hard-bitten style. Only running five stories, this edition collects the entire series, along with the one other story Torrey wrote for Dime Detective in this same period, "Curtains for Five." Rounded out by an authoritative introduction by pulp historian Will Murray, The Complete Cases of Johnny Cass is the most important hard-boiled detective story to see print in years.