"The false Burton Combs" is a crime story written by Caroll John Daly and published in the “Black mask magazine” in December 1922. The narrator, a tough guy, “kind of private eye”, is approached by a man who wants him to travel to Nantucket under his identity. Once on the island, he will be Burton Combs. And problems will start arising...With its cortege of evil mid-aged women, femmes fatales, cold-blooded killers, without forgetting a trial, and a final twist at the end, The false Burton Combs is known as the first ever “hard-boiled” story, preceding Hammett’s Continental Op, and Daly’s work the inspiration of Mickey Spillane. Discover The false Burton Combs with its original preface (we briefly review the codes of the “hard-boiled” genre amongst many other things) and biography in this new edition by Les Éditions de Londres.
