I’ve got a membership in the Stark House Press Crime Club. This is a small press based in California. Their primary focus is vintage crime and noir, but they published more than that. Science fiction, fantasy, supernatural, and stragiht-up adventure.

The way the Crime Club works is like a book club. Each month, I get a newsletter in my inbox describing the main selection and several ohters. There’s also the monthly Black Gat imprint. These are small paperbacks that reprint vintage crime novels. Think the early days of Hard Case Crime, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what they’re like except that the authors tend to be a little more obscure. I have a subscription to the Black Gat imprint and get a nicde dose of noir each month, whether I have time to read it or not.

This month’s lead title arrived the other day. It’s a collection of Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone short stories, The Lost Coast.

I read the first two stories the other night while beeing snowed in.

And that got me thinking. Continue reading →