Best of
Crime

1975

Inner City Hoodlum


Donald Goines - 1975
    He and his pals, Josh and Buddy, hit them often, stealing for a fence. They have to. They're the soul support of their families. But when Josh is killed by a security guard (who gets his brains scattered by Buddy with nunchaku sticks), they are forced to look for other work. They find it with the underworld kings in Elliot Davis. But when Davis recruits Johnny's sister for his stabke and later OD's her, Johnny and Buddy come on with a vengeance.He lived by the code of the streets and his books vividly recreated the street jungle and its predators. --New Jersey Voice

Loving Natalee: A Mother's Testament of Hope and Faith


Beth Holloway - 1975
     In May of 2005, Beth Holloway received the worst phone call a parent can imagine. Her beautiful daughter, Natalee, had disappeared without a trace in Aruba during her high school senior class trip. Two years later, for the first time, Beth Holloway steps forward in this astonishingly candid and inspirational memoir to tell of her harrowing ordeal and her never-ending belief in the power of faith that gave her hope against all odds. Natalee's senior class picture was splashed across the front pages of the country's newspapers and on television. Desperate for a clue as to her daughter's whereabouts, Beth and an army of faithful volunteers searched tirelessly for the missing eighteen-year-old. In their pursuit of Natalee, they encountered many roadblocks. As the horror stretched out, Beth stood on her foundation of faith, which at times was all she had to give her strength against a barrage of unbearable questions with no answers. Natalee's disappearance remains unsolved and her location unknown to this day. Beth's search continues.

High Stakes


Dick Francis - 1975
    But his winning streak is about to come to a fast end when he discovers trouble in his own stables—trouble that could bring about his own termination if he doesn’t watch his step…

The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano


Martin A. Gosch - 1975
    Gosch, this powerful inside chronicle is literally the "last testament" of America's most notorious gangster.

The First Rex Stout Omnibus: Featuring Nero Wolfe And Archie Goodwin: " The Doorbell Rang " , " The Second Confession " And " More Deaths Than One "


Rex Stout - 1975
    

"...officer down, code three."


Pierce R. Brooks - 1975
    

The Wrong Case


James Crumley - 1975
    He's up to his third drink of the morning when an attractive young woman walks into his office and asks him to find her brother. He takes on what seems a routine missing-person case in hopes of getting to know her better, but finds himself involved in what is most definitely the wrong case. Everyone is a victim, one way or another, of a crime that took place long before the novel begins.

Square Mile of Murder


Jack House - 1975
    These horrific murders were committed not in the East End as expected, but in the fashionable and respectable West End of Glasgow. Madeline Smith was accused and found not guilty of lacing her doomed lover's late-night cocoa with arsenic; an eighty-three year old woman was brutally battered to death, and Jessie McPherson was brutally struck forty times with a meat cleaver, in a case considered by some authorities to be the finest in the world. However, by far the most chilling crimes are those of Dr Edward William Pritchard, The Human Crocodile, who had the coffin lid unscrewed so that he could kiss the lips of the wife he had calculatingly murdered by slow poisoning. Glasgow is a city renowned for its crime and violence, but little has been documented about Victorian crime. This timely new edition of a classic best-seller, is the first of its kind, and is as valid today as ever.

Let's Talk Of Graves, Of Worms, And Epitaphs: A Novel


Robert Player - 1975
    But years prior, Barbellion was married with two children and also having an affair with Philippa, the wife of his neighbor, Harold Gatsby. When Gatsby is poisoned to death at a croquet party, Philippa is accused of the murder a sensational trial ensues, but no one dares to connect the case with the fact that Barbellion's ailing wife had also died suddenly, except for the narrator, Barbellion's son Augustine Xavier.

Target Manhattan


Brian Garfield - 1975
    As it nears Midtown, its bomb-bay doors creak open, giving the citizens a terrifying view of its five-hundred-pound bombs. No one knows why it’s there. As city officials attempt to identify it, the B-17’s pilot issues his demands. He wants five million dollars in unmarked bills, or Manhattan will burn. Reasoning with the strangely calm pilot is impossible. To attack the plane is madness, for the pilot would have time to release his payload before going down. They have to get him out of the sky—but how? Told in retrospect, through the documents and interviews of an official commission of inquiry, Target Manhattan is a chilling story of what can happen when America’s military might turns against itself.

Bloody Hand


Matt Braun - 1975
    But when a wealthy trading company owner offered to pay him to live among the Crow Indians, Beckwirth acceptedthedeal—and discoveredanother way of life that changed him forever.He fought a battle that had to be won…Here in the Wind River Mountains, amidst blood feuds and blood brothers, he became Bloody Hand, a man sworn to take a hundred scalps—and destined to become the People's greatest warrior—in a life-or-death struggle that shaped the fate of a nation.

Bronson Blind Rage


Philip Rawls - 1975
    The real author is unknown, and the name of the titular character and the cover illustration were obviously inspired by Charles Bronson in Death Wish.