Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Gravetapping Stark House Press: Black Gat Books






I’m a big fan of Stark House Press, and I have been meaning to 
write a post about its latest publishing venture, Black Gat Books
for a several weeks. Black Gat is a mass market line dedicated to 
reprinting great crime novels of the past. Stark House’s website 
identifies Black Gat’s mission statement—  

“This is a single-title line of books, uniformly priced at $9.99, 
offering additional reprint titles from past masters of mystery fiction. 
Each book will be numbered. Some will have new introductions, 
some will not.”

There are three titles currently available:

No. 1.  A Haven for the Damned by Harry Whittington. This is one of 
Mr. Whittington’s Gold Medal books originally published in 1962. 
The Black Gat edition includes an excellent Introduction by David 
Laurence Wilson.

No. 2.  Eddie’s World by Charlie Stella. This is Charlie Stella’s 
first novel. It was originally published in 2001, and received critical 
raves. Stark House published its sequel, Rough Riders, in 2012, 


No. 3.  Stranger at Home by Leigh Brackett. This title was originally 
published as by George Sanders—the English actor—in 1946. It was 
written by the great Leigh Brackett, and it is thankfully available again. 

There are two additional titles that have been announced, 
but not yet released:

No. 4.  The Persian Cat by John Flagg. This is one of the earliest 
Gold Medal titles. It features agent Gil Denby, and is set in Tehran. 
Its release date is August 2015.

No. 5.  Only the Wicked by Gary Phillips. This is an Ivan Monk mystery 
set in Los Angeles. Its release date is November 2015.  

The Black Gat titles are available directly through the publisher , and 
most online bookstores. If you click on the titles above you will be 
whisked to the Amazon page for each.

1 comment:

Robert Lopresti said...

I love Eddy's World - and doesnt the title immediately tell you he is going to George V. higgins territory? - Charlie Stella in general. I have been meaning toread Leigh BrCkett ever since Mystery Scene published a piece about her. Guess this is my chance.