The indefatigable Peter Haining rides again. The title describes the contents: the original stories that were the inspiration behind some of the silver screen's best-known films of crime and detection. Remember Little Caesar and Edward G. Robinson's "Can this be the end of Rico?"? Well, now you can read the story by W.R. Burnett, called "Nobody's All Bad", that led to the screenplay. There is also Cornell Woolrich's "It Had to be Murder", which becameRear Window, "The Killers" by Ernest Hemingway which became, well, The Killers, and "Old Man Menace", by Louis Joseph Vance, which was the basis for the Lone Wolf series of B-pictures. More modern examples are furnished by "The Glory Hunter", by Brian Garfield: Death Wish; "The Embassy Incident", by Brian Clemens: The Professionals; and David Morrell's exquisitely titled "The Dripping", which became Rambo.
By Vincent Banville