Brett Halliday (1904–1977) was the primary pen name of Davis Dresser, under which he wrote and later commissioned installments of the popular Michael Shayne series. Dresser wrote numerous mysteries, westerns, and romances as Halliday, cofounded the Halliday and McCloy literary agency, and established the Torquil Publishing Company. Dresser was a founding member of the Mystery Writers of America in 1945, and received an Edgar Award from the organization in 1954.
Vicki Hendricks is the author of the noir novels Miami Purity, Iguana Love, Voluntary Madness, Sky Blues, and Cruel Poetry, which was an Edgar Award finalist in 2008. Her short stories are collected in Florida Gothic Stories. She currently lives in central Florida, the rural locale of her most recent novel, Fur People.
Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) was a novelist, folklorist, dramatist, ethnographer, and cultural anthropologist. She is the author of four novels, including Their Eyes Were Watching God; two books of folklore; an autobiography; and over fifty short stories, essays, and plays. She attended Howard University, Barnard College, and Columbia University. She was born in Notasulga, Alabama, and grew up in Eatonville, Florida.
Christine Kling is an avid sailor as well as the author of eight nautical thrillers. Her first series of five novels is set in Florida and features a female tug and salvage captain, Seychelle Sullivan. The Shipwreck Adventures, her second series, are international thrillers based on real historical shipwrecks. Currently, Kling and her husband live in Antalya, Turkey, where they are building their next boat, an all-aluminum expedition passage maker designed for exploring the high latitudes.
Elmore Leonard (1925–2013), once called the “Dickens of Detroit” by Time magazine, first began writing fiction in the fifth grade. Although he initially gained notoriety through his westerns, Leonard later became an extremely prolific author of crime novels, short stories, and screenplays, all distinct in their focus on characters and realistic, Detroit slang — ridden dialogue. During his career, Leonard was the recipient of the Edgar, Peabody, and National Book awards, among others.
T.J. MacGregor (a.k.a. Trish MacGregor, Alison Drake, and several other names) is the author of forty-two novels and several dozen nonfiction books on synchronicity, astrology, tarot, and dreams. Her most recent novel is Skin Shifters, and she won the Edgar Award in 2003 for her novel Out of Sight.
Damon Runyon (1880–1946) was a well-known journalist and author of short stories, many of which were collected into his popular 1931 book, and later Broadway show, Guys and Dolls, which is now considered a classic of musical theater. Although he gained notoriety through political and sports journalism, Runyon’s trademark was his interest in people over facts. This led to his exaggerated caricatures of Broadway locals, cementing his career as one of New York’s most sought-after writers.
Les Standiford, who edited 2006’s Miami Noir, is the author of twenty-four books and novels, including the award-winning John Deal thriller series and the works of narrative nonfiction Last Train to Paradise, the One Read choice of a dozen public library systems, and Bringing Adam Home, a Wall Street Journal number one true crime best seller. He is director of the MFA program in creative writing at Florida International University in Miami.
Charles Willeford (1919–1988), who wrote seventeen novels including the popular Hoke Moseley series, was described by the Atlantic as “the unlikely father of Miami crime fiction.” His books have been published in twenty languages. Four of them — Cockfighter, Miami Blues, The Woman Chaser, and The Burnt Orange Heresy — have been made into movies. A decorated World War II tank commander, Willeford is buried in the Arlington National Cemetery.
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to a number of individuals who were of great assistance to me in assembling the stories found in this volume. For their help in identifying materials from the golden age of the pulps and for their interest in this enterprise, my most sincere thanks go to Otto Penzler, editor in chief and publisher of Mysterious Press, and to Will Murray, long-time pulp historian and expert on matters related to Doc Savage and Lester Dent. I am also greatly indebted to Betsy Willeford, Charles’s widow, for her aid and unflagging encouragement. Thanks as well to my FIU colleague Lynne Barrett, herself an Edgar Award winner, for her many adroit suggestions: “Oh but there must be something out there by Damon Runyon!” And last but certainly not least, thanks to all my fellow ink-stained wretches who have so generously shared their most excellent work for this collection. Drawing us all together once again has reminded me what a great blessing it has been to spend a career working and playing among so many great talents — I believe that as a group we are second to none, here in our lovely literary Casablanca.
Permissions
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the stories in this anthology. “Pineland” by Marjory Stoneman Douglas was originally published in the Saturday Evening Post (August 15, 1925), © 1925 by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, licensed here from the University of Miami Press; “Luck” by Lester Dent was originally published in The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories, edited by Otto Penzler (New York: Vintage Books, 2010) after being published in another form as “Sail” in Black Mask (October 1936); Their Eyes Were Watching God (excerpt) by Zora Neale Hurston was originally published in 1937, © 1937 by Zora Neale Hurston, renewed © 1965 by John C. Hurston and Joel Hurston, reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers; “A Taste for Cognac” by Brett Halliday was originally published in Black Mask (November 1944), © 1944 by Brett Halliday; “A Job for the Macarone” by Damon Runyon was originally published in the Saturday Evening Post (October 2, 1937), © 1937 by Damon Runyon; “The Red Shoes” by Edna Buchanan was originally published in Murder and Obsession, edited by Otto Penzler (New York: Dell Publishing, 1999), © 1999 by Edna Buchanan; Street 8 (excerpt) by Douglas Fairbairn was originally published in 1977 (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence), © 1977 by Douglas Fairbairn; “Saturday Night Special” by Charles Willeford was originally published as “Strange” in Everybody’s Metamorphosis (Missoula, MT: Dennis McMillan Publications, 1988), © 1988 by Charles Willeford; “The Odyssey” by Elmore Leonard was originally published in the Miami Herald Tropic in 1995, licensed here from Naked Came the Manatee by Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, Dave Barry, James W. Hall, Edna Buchanan, Les Standiford, Paul Levine, Brian Antoni, Tananarive Due, John Dufresne, Vicki Hendricks, Carolina Hospital, and Evelyn Mayerson, used by permission of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, all rights reserved, copyright © 1995 by Elmore Leonard; “Small Times” by James Carlos Blake was originally published in Gulf Stream (Spring 1991), © 1991 by James Carlos Blake; “The Works” by T.J. MacGregor was originally published in