Redheads Die Quickly and Other Storiers

REDHEADS DIE QUICKLY

Gil Brewer, the frantic master of compulsive noir fiction—the man of whom author/editor Ed Gorman once said, “at his best, he hooked you in the first paragraph and never let you go.” According to Leonard Cassuto, author of Hard-Boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories, “Brewer marinated crime and lust together in the humid Florida heat to produce stories of sexual hunger, obsession, and predation.”

Presented here are thirty of his best Florida stories, direct from the pages of Manhunt, Pursuit, Detective Tales and other great mystery magazines of the 1950s and 60s. Brewer contributed prolifically to the pulp outlets of the day, turning out everything from hardboiled crime tales to pornographic fantasies. He published over 100 stories and 50 novels from 1951 to 1976 under his own name and at least 13 pseudonyms (including an Ellery Queen novel).

Originally published in 2012 by University Press of Florida, this new Stark House edition of Redheads Die Quickly includes five stories left out of the first edition, including the novelette “Meet Me in the Dark.” They are, as crime writer Dave Zeltserman referenced them, “hard-boiled gems, with each story wilder than the next.”