Hard Case Crime

Founded	2004
Founder	Charles Ardai
Country of origin	United States
Key people	Max Phillips
Publication types	Books, Graphic novels, Comics
Fiction genres	Hard-boiled fiction
Owners	Winterfall LLC, in collaboration withDorchester Publishing (2004–2010); in collaboration withTitan Books (2011–present)

Hard Case Crime is an Americanimprint ofhardboiledcrime novels founded in 2004 byCharles Ardai and Max Phillips.^[1][2] The series recreates, in editorial form and content, the flavor of the paperback crime novels of the 1940s and '50s. The covers feature original illustrations done in a style that was common for paperbacks of that era, credited to artists such asRobert McGinnis andGlen Orbik.^[3]

Hard Case's list includes both reprints of books from the pulp era (typically labeledComplete and unabridged on the cover), and new novels written for the collection (typically labeledFirst publication anywhere). The top-selling entries in the series to date have been novels byStephen King:The Colorado Kid (2005), which later became the basis for the SyFy television seriesHaven,^[4][5][6]Joyland (2013), andLater (2021).

Nine novels published by Hard Case have been nominated for theEdgar Award: In 2005,Little Girl Lost, by Richard Aleas (apseudonym for Hard Case Crime co-founder Charles Ardai that is both an anagram of Ardai's name and a play on "alias"), was nominated as Best First Novel by an American Author, and Domenic Stansberry'sThe Confession won the award for Best Paperback Original; in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2014, 2023, and 2024 respectively,Allan Guthrie'sKiss Her Goodbye,Russell Hill'sRobbie's Wife,Christa Faust'sMoney Shot,Stephen King'sJoyland,Max Allan Collins'sQuarry's Blood, andScott Von Doviak'sLowdown Road were nominated for Best Paperback Original. In 2022,James Kestrel'sFive Decembers won the award for Best Novel.^[7][8]

Max Phillips'Fade to Blonde won the 2005Shamus Award for Best Paperback Novel of the Year, and Charles Ardai's pseudonymous "Richard Aleas" novelSongs of Innocence won the same award in 2008.^[9] Ardai also received the Edgar Award in 2007, for his short story "The Home Front."^[10]

Between 2004 and 2010, Hard Case Crime was published through a collaboration between Ardai's company, Winterfall LLC, andDorchester Publishing. After an announcement in August 2010 thatSubterranean Press would be publishing "an exclusive Hard Case Crime volume," starting in 2011,Titan Books replaced Dorchester as publisher of the series.^[11] Two volumes in the series, one reprinting a pair of earlyLawrence Block novels,69 Barrow Street andStrange Embrace, the other a collection of Lawrence Block short stories,Catch and Release, ultimately were published by Subterranean Press.^[12]

Since the imprint's move toTitan Comics, Hard Case Crime has released comics and graphic novels in the same hard-boiled genre as the book division, such asCharles Ardai'sGun Honey series.^[13]

The first 66 titles, published in collaboration with Dorchester Publishing in the mass-market paperback format, were numbered HCC-001 through HCC-066. When Dorchester Publishing went out of business, Hard Case Crime had a year-long hiatus in publishing, and restarted numbering with HCC-101 when they began collaborating with Titan Books to publish further titles, mostly in the larger trade paperback format. Two books published in collaboration with Subterranean Press (a collaboration arranged before the relationship with Titan Books began, though the books were published after) were given the in-between numbering HCC-069 and HCC-070. (The books that had been scheduled to be HCC-067 and HCC-068 with Dorchester became HCC-102 and HCC-104 with Titan.)

In addition to this standard numbering system, certain titles have non-standard numbering:

• Eight titles by Michael Crichton writing as “John Lange,” published to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the author’s death, were numbered MC1-MC8. (Previously, Hard Case Crime had published two of the eight books without Crichton’s name on them, crediting them only to “John Lange,” as HCC-027 and HCC-041.)

• Ten titles (to date) have been designated S01-S10, with the “S” standing for “Special”; most of these have been movie or TV tie-in editions added to the list on relatively short notice, after other titles had already been assigned numbers that would have needed to be changed if the added titles had been inserted into the standard sequence.

• Certain titles have, when reissued in the trade paperback format by Titan Books after originally being published by Dorchester in mass-market format, had the designation “-R” appended to their number for the reissued edition.

• One title (to date) has, when reissued in the trade paperback format and also as a movie tie-in edition, had the designation “-S” appended to its number for the new edition.

• Hard Case Crime Official Web Site

• Book series
• Pulp fiction
• Publishing companies established in 2004

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata