Drive


James Sallis - 2005
    Sallis combines murder, treachery and payback in a sinister plot with resonances of 1940s pulp fiction and film noir. Told through a cinematic narrative that weaves back and forth through time and place, the story explores Driver's near existential moral foundations, intercut with moments of bloody violence.

Night Walker


Donald Hamilton - 1954
    David Young is a lieutenant in the United States Naval Reserve, returning to active duty. On his way to Norfolk Naval Base in the middle of the night, Young hitches a ride with Lawrence Wilson, an ill-tempered man who explains how he was recently fired from the Navy Department for alleged seditious activities. Young is suddenly attacked by the stranger and loses consciousness. When he awakens, he is laying in a hospital bed with his head wrapped in bandages. The nurse calls him "Mr. Wilson" and informs him that he is lucky to be alive after such a horrific car accident. Things get even stranger when his supposed wife -- a brunette bombshell named Elizabeth -- checks the still-sedated Young out of the hospital and takes him home. Without even realizing it, Young becomes the main target of a killer -- or killers -- involved in an intricate Communist plot that threatens the security of the nation. It's a testament to Hamilton's narrative brilliance that Night Walker is just as wildly compelling today as it was when it was originally released in 1954. This timeless pulp classic has it all: down-and-dirty fall guys, sexy damsels in distress, sadistic villains, elaborate conspiracies -- an absolute must-read for any and all discerning connoisseurs of mystery. Paul Goat AllenCover art for Dell First Edition 27 by Carl Bobertz

I Should Have Stayed Home


Horace McCoy - 1938
    I Should Have Stayed Home tells the story of two jobless roommates and movie extras. After Mona gains notoriety for cursing a judge during a friend?s trial, she and Ralph are introduces to Hollywood society. Ralph battles with his own corruption and loss of principle, while Mona serves as his conscience, warning him against himself and the temptations of success.

The Circular Staircase


Mary Roberts Rinehart - 1908
    And then -- the madness seized me. When I look back over the months I spent at Sunnyside, I wonder that I survived at all. As it is, I show the wear and tear of my harrowing experiences. I have turned very gray -- Liddy reminded me of it, only yesterday, by saying that a little bluing in the rinse-water would make my hair silvery, instead of a yellowish white. I hate to be reminded of unpleasant things and I snapped her off. "No," I said sharply, "I'm not going to use bluing at my time of life, or starch, either."

The Minotaur


Barbara Vine - 2005
    A young nurse fresh out of school, Kerstin has been hired for a position with the Cosway family, residents of the Hall for generations. She is soon introduced to her "charge" John Cosway, a thirty-nine-year-old man whose strange behavior is vaguely explained by his mother and sisters as part of the madness that runs in the family. Weeks go by at Lydstep with little to mark the passage of time beyond John's daily walks and the amusingly provincial happenings that engross the Cosway women, and Kerstin occupies her many free hours at the Hall reading or making entries into her diary. Meanwhile, bitter wrangling among Julia Cosway and her four grown daughters becomes increasingly evident. But this is just the most obvious of the tensions that charge the old remote estate, with its sealed rooms full of mystery. Soon Kerstin will find herself in possession of knowledge she will wish she'd never attained, secrets that will propel the occupants of Lydstep Old Hall headlong into sexual obsession, betrayal, and, finally, murder.

Caught Stealing


Charlie Huston - 2004
    But now Hank is here, working as a bartender and taking care of a cat named Bud who is surely going to get him killed.It begins when Hank’s neighbor, Russ, has to leave town in a rush and hands over Bud in a carrier. But it isn’t until two Russians in tracksuits drag Hank over the bar at the joint where he works and beat him to a pulp that he starts to get the idea: Someone wants something from him. He just doesn’t know what it is, where it is, or how to make them understand he doesn’t have it.Within twenty-four hours Hank is running over rooftops, swinging his old aluminum bat for the sweet spot of a guy’s head, playing hide and seek with the NYPD, riding the subway with a dead man at his side, and counting a whole lot of cash on a concrete floor.All because of two cowboys, two Russian mafia men, and some of the weirdest goons ever assembled in one place. All because of Bud. All because once, in another life, in another world, the only thing Hank wanted was to take third base—without getting caught.

Boston Blackie


Jack Boyle - 1919
    He ensures that the worst villains get what’s coming to them while the honorable ones stay out on the street—where, like Blackie, they do more good than harm. In this classic collection of adventures, with his dependable wife and getaway driver, Mary, by his side, Blackie gets into and out of a dizzying array of tight spots. He escapes from prison, saves a friend from the gallows, and pulls off the gold bullion heist of a lifetime. Later adapted into serials, movies, and TV shows, Boston Blackie’s exploits are some of the most thrilling in all of crime fiction. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

The Monkey's Raincoat


Robert Crais - 1987
    A quiet and seemingly submissive wife, Ellen can't even write a check without him. All she wants is to get him and her son back—no questions asked. The search for Ellen's errant husband leads Elvis into the seamier side of Hollywood. He soon learns that Mort Lang is a down-on-his-luck talent agent who associates with a schlocky movie producer, and the last place he was spotted was at a party thrown by a famous and very well-connected ex-Matador. But no one has seen him since—including his B-movie girlfriend.At the same time the police find Mort in his parked car with four gunshots in his chest —and no kid in sight—Ellen disappears. Now nothing is what it seems, and the heat is on. It's up to Elvis Cole and his partner Joe Pike to find the connection between sleazy Hollywood players and an ex-Matador.

Where Are the Children?


Mary Higgins Clark - 1975
    She changed her name, dyed her hair, and left California for the windswept peace of Cape Cod. Now remarried, she has two more beloved children, and the terrible pain has begun to heal -- until the morning when she looks in the backyard for her little boy and girl and finds only one red mitten. She knows that the nightmare is beginning again....

The Honjin Murders


Seishi Yokomizo - 1946
    But amid the gossip over the approaching festivities, there is also a worrying rumour - it seems a sinister masked man has been asking questions around the village.Then, on the night of the wedding, the Ichiyanagi household are woken by a terrible scream, followed by the sound of eerie music. Death has come to Okamura, leaving no trace but a bloody samurai sword, thrust into the pristine snow outside the house. Soon, amateur detective Kosuke Kindaichi is on the scene to investigate what will become a legendary murder case, but can this scruffy sleuth solve a seemingly impossible crime?

Death of a Red Heroine


Qiu Xiaolong - 2000
    As Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau struggles to trace the hidden threads of her past, he finds himself challenging the very political forces that have guided his life since birth. Chen must tiptoe around his superiors if he wants to get to the bottom of this crime, and risk his career—perhaps even his life—to see justice done.

The Devil All the Time


Donald Ray Pollock - 2011
    There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrifi­cial blood he pours on his “prayer log.” There’s Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial kill­ers, who troll America’s highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. There’s the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte’s orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.

The Night of the Hunter


Davis Grubb - 1953
    This best-selling novel, first published in 1953 to wide acclaim by author Grubb, (who like Powers lived in Clarksburg, West Virginia), served as the basis for Charles Laughton's noir classic . Renamed "Harry Powell," the lead character in this book, with LOVE and HATE tattooed on his fingers, is remembered as one of the creepiest men in book and cinema history.

Beast In View


Margaret Millar - 1955
    What starts with a crank call from an old school chum sets the lonely, aloof, financially comfortable Miss Helen Clarvoe on a path as predictable only as madness. Lured from her rooms in a second-rate residential Hollywood hotel, she finds herself stranded in the more perilous terrain of extortion, pornography, vengeance, and ultimately murder.

Red Dragon


Thomas Harris - 1981
    Graham is the greatest profiler the FBI ever had, but the physical and mental scars of capturing Hannibal Lecter have caused Graham to go into early retirement. Now, Graham must turn to Lecter for help.