Friday, October 30, 2020

Forgotten Books: THE COMPLETE CASES OF MacBRIDE & KENNEDY by Frederick Nebel


In my estimation, the ten year saga of MacBride & Kennedy was the second most important series ever to appear in the pages of Black Mask. The only thing to top it, you can probably guess, was Hammett's Continental Op.

The reprinting of this series was long time coming. Nebel's agent tried to sell Avon a collection of stories back in 1950, after the publication of the "Tough Dick" Donahue book Six Deadly Dames. But Avon declined. I pitched a volume, to be titled Raw Law, to Dennis McMillan back in the '80s, when he was reprinting stuff by Fredric Brown and Howard Browne, but that failed too.

Thankfully, Keith Allen Deutsch and Matt Moring finally got 'er done in 2013, with this four volume collection of the whole shebang. I was enlisted to write an Intro, allowing me to present all the Nebel info I'd gathered, and thoroughly enjoyed the task. All are still available, totaling thirty-seven slam-bang novelettes. Check 'em out!



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