Stark House noir classics

Peter Rabe (born Peter Rabinowitsch, November 3, 1921 – May 20, 1990) was a German American writer who also wrote under the names Marco Malaponte and J. T. MacCargo (though not all of the latter's books were by him). Rabe was the author of over 30 books, mostly of crime fiction, published between 1955 and 1975. After his first book, Rabe wrote almost exclusively crime fiction, the exceptions being three soft core books for Beacon in the early sixties, and a novelization of the war movie Tobruk for Bantam in 1967. In an essay included in the book Murder off the Rack, edited by Jon L. Breen,Donald E. Westlake opens with the line, "Peter Rabe wrote the best books with the worst titles of anybody I can think of." When Gold Medal changed the titles of Rabe's first two books from The Ticker and The Hook to Stop This Man! and Benny Muscles In, a pattern was set that would last throughout his career. Stop This Man! appeared in August, 1955 (Gold Medal 506), followed closely by Benny Muscles In (Gold Medal 520, September, 1955), and A Shroud for Jesso (Gold Medal 528, October, 1955). Clearly capable of writing books quickly, Rabe published eighteen books by 1961. In 1962 came one of his best books, The Box (one of only two Rabe books to use his own titles, the other being A House in Naples). Then there were the three soft core books for Beacon, the last two under the pseudonym of Marco Malaponte. After this came the three books about his second series character, Manny DeWitt, the novelization of Tobruk, and then the final books to appear under his own name. These were a pair of Mafia related books, again for Gold Medal (War of the Dons (Gold Medal M2592, 1972), and Black Mafia (Gold Medal M2939). The last books Rabe published before he backed off from his writing career were novelizations of episodes of the television series "Mannix" using the pseudonym "J. T. MacCargo." This was apparently a house name for Belmont, with an unknown author penning the first and third books of the series. Rabe wrote the second and fourth books, A Fine Day for Dying and Round Trip to Nowhere, both appearing in 1975. They were the last of his books to be published in his lifetime.