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, which was reviewed here at Gravetapping.  

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.