"Orange Pulp is a stylish, engaging collection that belongs on everybody's night stand. Each story sizzles and pops with Florida's raunchy, intoxicating heat. This is great fun."--Carl Hiaasen
"Ah, Florida's growing cash crop--scumbags in paradise. With Orange Pulp, Glassman and O'Sullivan again make the case that the Sunshine State need not look to L.A., or even past the azaleas, for the next noir fix. The 'lost' Willeford piece alone is worth the price of admission."--Tim Dorsey, author of Florida Roadkill and Hammerhead Ranch Motel
"It's about time someone gathered a full collection of the writing about the dark side of the Sunshine State."-- George H. Meyer, author of Kill the Landlord
"This collection brings together for the first time a good sample of the many stories that have made Florida such a natural, popular setting for mysteries. The editors have made available rather inaccessible stories and novels that will entertain mystery lovers for quite a while."-- Kevin McCarthy, University of Florida
Orange Pulp is an anthology of crime, of heroes and villains, and it celebrates the murder mystery. The writers--creators of the genre sometimes called "American noir"--including John D. MacDonald and Charles Willeford, helped Florida become a serious contender for the title of crime fiction capital of America.
Even the most devoted aficionados of the genre have rarely encountered the kind of nonstop action concocted by the reclusive founder of the American hard-boiled mystery, Carroll John Daly; the comic elegance of Jonathan Latimer; or the eclectic world of Mike Shayne in Brett Halliday's classic series.
Orange Pulp also includes Mary Roberts Rinehart's only Florida story, Edwin Granberry's brilliantly realized account of an execution, and a tribute to the ecological concerns of John D. MacDonald, whose work transformed the Florida pulps into a true art.
The editors begin with a comprehensive survey of Florida crime fiction and provide generous introductions to each individual author. The book includes two special bonuses: the complete text of The Hated One by Don Tracy, a riveting novel of murder, race, and culture that has been out of print for decades, and the opening to an unfinished work by Charles Willeford, creator of the classic Hoke Moseley novels such as Miami Blues and Sideswipe.
With work by legendary pioneers from the golden age of pulp fiction, this collection reveals a rich and popular--though often overlooked--tradition of mystery writing in the Sunshine State.
Contributors
Carroll John Daly
Edwin Granberry
Jonathan Latimer
Brett Halliday
Mary Roberts Rinehart
John D. MacDonald
Stephen Ransome
Charles Willeford
Don Tracy
Maurice O'Sullivan is Kenneth Curry Chair of Literature and chair of the English Department and Humanities Division at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida. He is the coeditor of The Florida Reader and (with Steve Glassman) of Crime Fiction and Film in the Sunshine State (an Edgar finalist in 1998).
Steve Glassman is associate professor in the Department of the Humanities at Embry-Riddle University, Daytona Beach, Florida. He is author of the novel Blood on the Moon, coeditor of Zora in Florida (UPF, 1991), and (with Maurice O'Sullivan) coeditor of Crime Fiction and Film in the Sunshine State.
