A perfect storm of paper shortages and fly-by-night publishers in the years after World War II led to a boom in cheaply produced American-style hard-boiled crime fiction. Hank Janson, dubbed the ‘Best of Tough Gangster Authors’—in truth a south London former shipping clerk turned publisher—sold five million copies of his novels to a public who craved excitement and escapism in Hank’s violent, sexually charged world.

The courts took a more damning view, destroying hundreds of thousands of paperbacks and magazines that were judged obscene. Janson’s novels, with their voluptuous pin-up covers, were a regular target, but requests for guidance from authorities went unanswered. Then, Janson’s publisher and distributor were arrested, tried and jailed.

This is the story of Hank Janson, of his creator Stephen D Frances, and how, out of the ashes of destruction orders levelled at cheap gangster novels, the Obscene Publications Act was reformed.

THE TRIALS OF HANK JANSON was a runner-up for the Crime Writers’ Association’s Golden Dagger Award. This revised and expanded edition reveals more of the background and people behind the much-maligned  author whose books eventually sold twenty million copies, were translated widely, and who had an arrest warrant issued, should he dare to return to the UK from his home in Spain.

This new edition of the book reinstates a chapter missing from for the original edition, as well as adding information not available twenty years ago.