An addled ex-boxer named Tiny Tim ambles out of the shadows and complains to a beat cop that he is being followed. The officer laughs him off; everyone knows that Tiny Tim has heard footsteps behind him for years. But a few minutes later, Tim is spotted in a pool of blood, dead at the bottom of the subway steps. After years of running, the imagined footsteps have caught up to him at last.

This brisk tale of deception and murder is but one of the stories in this collection from Hugh B. Cave, a master of pulp fiction whose career spanned seventy-five years. Along with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Cave was one of the defining authors of Black Mask magazine, and these stories are perfect examples of what set that pulp apart. Hard-boiled, fast-paced, and witty, the tales of Long Live the Dead are just as captivating now as they were on the newsstand many decades ago.

“Other writers may have been equally productive in as many genres, but very few matched the success and professional reputation of Mr. Cave.” —The New York Times