In these pages, you will enter a nightmarish world that blends weird mystery and heart-stopping horror, with Steve Harrison as your guide, a powerful man who is more likely to tear into a fight with a mace or a battle-axe than a gun. Harrison has more in common with Howard’s sword-swinging Conan than Hammett’s Continental Op, but he helps to establish the roots of a noir style that would later find success with Micky Spillane’s Mike Hammer. Harrison might walk the mean streets and back alleys of the 1930s, but he has the soul of a barbaric savage, possessed by the crimson instinct for slaughter.

This volume is printed in hardback with a dust jacket and is also available in paperback—cover design and painting by Mark Wheatley; introduction by Don Herron; and edited by Rob Roehm.

It’s published by REH Foundation Press.

Contents – Steve Harrison’s Casebook

• v • Acknowledgements (Steve Harrison’s Casebook) • essay by uncredited
• vii • Hard-Boiled in Texas • essay by Don Herron
• 3 • Lord of the Dead • [Steve Harrison] • (1978) • novelette by Robert E. Howard
• 39 • The People of the Serpent • [Steve Harrison] • (1934) • novelette by Robert E. Howard (variant of Fangs of Gold)
• 67 • The Teeth of Doom • [Steve Harrison] • (1934) • novelette by Robert E. Howard (variant of The Tomb’s Secret)
• 91 • The Black Moon • [Steve Harrison] • (1983) • short story by Robert E. Howard
• 105 • The Voice of Death • [Steve Harrison] • (1984) • short story by Robert E. Howard
• 119 • The House of Suspicion • [Steve Harrison] • (1976) • novelette by Robert E. Howard
• 145 • Names in the Black Book • [Steve Harrison] • (1934) • novelette by Robert E. Howard
• 183 • The Silver Heel • [Steve Harrison] • (1994) • novelette by Robert E. Howard
• 227 • Graveyard Rats • [Steve Harrison] • (1936) • novelette by Robert E. Howard

Miscellanea

• 257 • The Mystery of Tannernoe Lodge (fragment) • [Steve Harrison] • (2003) • short fiction by Robert E. Howard
• 265 • Untitled synopsis (“Steve Harrison received a wire…”) • [Steve Harrison] • (1994) • short fiction by Robert E. Howard
• 267 • The Silver Heel (synopsis) • [Steve Harrison] • (2007) • short fiction by Robert E. Howard
• 275 • Graveyard Rats (draft) • [Steve Harrison] • short fiction by Robert E. Howard

Notes

Edited by Rob Roehm. 

A few books were sold at Howard Days 2022.

The titling of “The People of the Serpent” and “Teeth of Doom” is an attempt to get the names fixed after the magazine they were both published in got the names mixed up.

The February 1934 issue of STRANGE DETECTIVE STORIES carried two stories by REH: “The Tomb’s Secret” and “Fangs of Gold.” It appears that the story titles were inadvertently switched. Howard’s agent, Otis Adelbert Kline, kept a list of titles and the magazines that purchased them. Above “The Teeth of Doom” on Kline’s list, someone added “The Tomb’s Secret.”

Above “The People of the Serpent” on Kline’s list, someone added “Fangs of Gold.”

There are few changes from the first published version of this book. The first edition used the first published version of “Names in the Black Book”. Since then the REH Foundation has located the final typescript and re-edited back to match that for the Ultimate Edition. In fact, the changes are few, mostly punctuation, etc.

Ultimate Edition 2.1 Update:
Page 91 was inadvertently repeated in the previous edition; this has now been corrected. The book has been rebuilt to match the standardized Ultimate Edition layout used since August 2024. No new content has been added. Due to the correction and updated formatting, the page count has increased from 312 to 322 pages. The cover artwork by Mark Wheatley has also been slightly revised to better align with the overall Ultimate Edition series design.