Thanks for visiting Behind the Black Mask: Mystery Writers Revealed. From 2006-2008, Clute and Edwards conducted 28 interviews with today's best crime writers—discussing the author's most recent novel in detail, and the writing life in general.

All 28 episodes are still available for free download. Scroll down this page to download podcasts featuring your favorite writers.

Though no longer conducting new author interviews for Behind the Black Mask, Clute and Edwards have been hard at work on several new hard-boiled projects. Just below this post you'll find information on their new book, The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism, and a link to visit their revised and enhanced main portal site, www.noircast.net, which includes information on their other podcasts on film noir and hard-boiled media. 

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Nearly all the authors interviewed by Clute and Edwards have released new books since their appearance on Behind the Black Mask. Please visit their author websites or your local bookseller, and grab copies of their latest works. This is one group of writers that will not disappoint you!

Thanks again for your interest in Behind the Black Mask: Mystery Writers Revealed.

--Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards

Reserve a copy of Clute and Edwards' new noir book today at Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/jCePwG

In December 2011, Dartmouth College Press (University Press of New England) will release Clute and Edwards' new study of film noir, The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism.  This exciting book builds on crucial insights from the Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir podcasts, and draws on the work of the experimental literary group Oulipo (an acronym for "Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle," or "Workshop of Potential Literature") to investigate the extreme self-consciousness and high degree of visual punning exhibited by noir.  In the process, the book proposes—and serves as a sustained demonstration of—an OuFiNoPo, or Workshop of Potential Film Noir.  Part thinking-man’s fan crush, part crazily inspired remix of the most beloved of film genres, this study will help scholars and film fans alike to view film noir afresh, and achieve new insights into even the best known movies.  

Clute and Edwards have never solicited donations for their podcasts, for like all good things these podcasts are a labor of love.  But they would ask you to…

PLEASE GRAB A COPY of The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism, and consider picking up other copies for all your movie-loving friends.