John Lawrence
They’re the toughest cops on Broadway-and they don’t play by the book.Spinning out of the hard-hitting Dime Detective series featuring Lieutenant Martin 'The Marquis' Marquis, these rare Black Mask stories shift the spotlight to the gritty enforcers of New York’s Broadway Squad: a hand-picked gang of hardboiled cops who keep Manhattan’s Main Stem under control-by any means necessary.Collected for the first time, Body of Evidence: The Complete Black Mask Cases of the Broadway Squad includes all four action-packed stories published in Black Mask magazine. Written by John Lawrence, one of the unsung masters of pulp crime fiction, these tales pull no punches as they follow the brutal street-level justice meted out by the most feared unit in the NYPD.These fast-paced, noir-drenched police procedurals blend gangster grit with lawman bravado-where the line between justice and corruption is razor thin. The Marquis himself appears, but it’s his squad-tough, smart, and dangerously effective-that takes center stage in this offshoot series from the golden age of Black Mask.Essential reading for fans of vintage detective fiction, pulp magazine crime stories, and the brutal realism of pre-noir police dramas. If you like your cops dirty, your dialogue sharp, and your fiction unrelenting, step into the shadows with the Broadway Squad.
