Classics in September — Just as the hardboiled anti-heroes of those old pulp novels in the 1930s, 40s and 50s were doggedly determined whenever they got their teeth into a case, the American publishing house Hard Case Crime shows an uncanny determination to keep everything that was great about the pulp era alive in today’s crime genre. Earlier in our Classics in September series, we spoke to its co-founder, Charles Ardai about his favourite classic crime books. Now, we’ve teamed up with Titan Books and HCC to bring you the opportunity to win a bundle containing four of their recent releases.

Yes, the lucky winner of this competition will win the newly published James M Cain novel The Cocktail Waitress, The Comedy is Finished by Donald E Westlake, Mickey Spillane’s early Hammer story Lady, Go Die, as well as The Twenty-Year Death by Ariel S Winter.

Each book has a great story behind it, not to mention a fantastic pulp art cover. The Cocktail Waitress, for instance, was discovered and edited by Charles Ardai, and is by one of the authors who helped define noir and hardboiled through books like Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and The Postman Always Rings Twice. The Twenty-Year Death, meanwhile, is a book in three parts, each one written in the style of a different early crime fiction author – Georges Simenon, Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson. Like The Cocktail Waitress, Lady, Go Die is from a long-lost manuscript – this one was found and restored by Mickey Spillane’s friend and literary executor Max Allan Collins. And what can we say about Donald E Westlake – a living legend in crime fiction he penned The Comedy is Finished for HCC and we reviewed it here.

If you love crime fiction, then enter today!

How to enter
To enter our competition all you have to do is email us at info[at]crimefictionlover.com*. In your email answer the question: Who wrote The Cocktail Waitress? Give your email the header HCC Competition and include the answer to our question, as well as your name and address.

Rules
1) One entry per reader. 2) We’re accepting entries from anywhere in the world for this one! 3) We will draw the winner at random from the entries containing the correct answer. 4) No cash alternative. 5) The competition closes for entries at 10pm BST on Monday 24 September 2012. 6) The judge’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

*replace the [at] with the @ symbol.