I, the Jury


Mickey Spillane - 1947
    It's a tough-guy mystery to please even the most bloodthirsty of fans!

Winter Kills


Richard Condon - 1974
    Timothy Kegan is shot in a Philadelphia motorcade; a presidential commission condemns a lone psychopath as the killer. Fourteen years later, Tim's half-brother, Nick, learns through a deathbed confession that Tim was the victim of a mysterious conspiracy. As Nick attempts to find the real assassin, he encounters oil kings, movie queens, venal police, organized crime, the CIA, and labor unions -- all eager for power and control. The ending is guaranteed to surprise and horrify!

Puzzle for Fools


Patrick Quentin - 1936
    Strange, malevolent occurrences plague the hospital; and among other inexplicable events, Peter hears his own voice with an ominous warning: "There will be murder." It soon becomes clear that a homicidal maniac is on the loose, and, with a staff every bit as erratic as its idiosyncratic patients, it seems everyone is a suspect, even Duluth's new romantic interest, Iris Pattison. Charged by the baffled head of the ward with solving the crimes, it's up to Peter to clear her name before the killer strikes again. A Puzzle for Fools

His Name Was Death


Fredric Brown - 1954
    Here is Frederic Brown's tale of geometrically multiplying homicides and of a foolproof murder whose aftershocks keep spreading to consume an infinite series of fresh victims.

I Married a Dead Man


William Irish - 1948
    In the crowded train car she meets happy newlyweds Patrice Hazzard, also expecting, and Hugh. They are on their way to visit Hugh’s parents, whom Patrice is meeting for the first time. After Patrice hands Helen her wedding band so she can wash her hands in the rest room, the train crashes, killing the Hazzards, but Helen survives. When she regains consciousness in the hospital, she discovers she has been mistaken for Patrice. Patrice’s wealthy in-laws send for Helen, and she decides for the sake of her son to go along with the misunderstanding. They welcome her into the fold and her “brother-in-law” Bill even shows signs of romantic interest. But when her husband tracks her down and threatens her with blackmail, her dream turns into a nightmare.

The Blank Wall


Elisabeth Sanxay Holding - 1947
    This novel is about maternal love and about the heroine's relationship with those around her, especially her children and her maid.

The Assistant Murderer


Dashiell Hammett - 1926
    A classic mystery from Dashiell Hammett.

Fatale


Jean-Patrick Manchette - 1977
    Now she’s set her eyes on a backwater burg—where, while posing as an innocent (albeit drop-dead gorgeous) newcomer to town, she means to sniff out old grudges and engineer new opportunities, deftly playing different people and different interests against each other the better, as always, to make a killing. But then something snaps: the master manipulator falls prey to a pure and wayward passion.Aimée has become the avenging angel of her own nihilism, exacting the destruction of a whole society of destroyers. An unholy original, Jean-Patrick Manchette transformed the modern detective novel into a weapon of gleeful satire and anarchic fun. In Fatale he mixes equal measures of farce, mayhem, and madness to prepare a rare literary cocktail that packs a devastating punch.

The Deep Blue Good-By


John D. MacDonald - 1964
    He's also a knight errant who's wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out and his rule is simple: he'll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half.

The Cry of the Owl


Patricia Highsmith - 1962
    Robert Forester, a depressed but fundamentally decent man, liked to watch Jenny through her kitchen window, a harmless palliative, as he saw it, to his lonely life and failed marriage. As he is drawn into her life, however, the recriminations of his simple pleasure shatter the deceptive calm of this small Pennsylvania town. With striking clarity and horrible inevitability, Forester is caught up in a series of deaths in which he is the innocent bystander, presumed guilty. Highsmith has once again, as Graham Greene wrote "created a world of her own, a world claustrophobic and irrational which we enter each time with a sense of personal danger". And that sense of danger grows from the first page to the sinister and chilling conclusion.

A Murder of Quality and Call for the Dead


John le Carré - 2010
    As a favour to an old friend , George Smiley pays a visit to Carne School to listen, to ask, and to uncover, layer by layer, the complex network of skeletons and hatreds that comprise that fine English institution.Call for the DeadSamuel Fennan, a Foreign Office man, was under investigation for Communist activities, until Smiley dismissed the allegations. When Fennan is found dead the day after he’s been cleared, with a note by his body saying he can't go on with his career in ruins, Smiley is puzzled...A deeper investigation uncovers a spy ring and Smiley is led into a lethal duel of wits with the best of his war-time pupils.

Get Shorty


Elmore Leonard - 1990
    So when he chases a deadbeat client out to Hollywood, Chili figures he might like to stay. This town, with its dream-makers, glitter, hucksters, and liars—plus gorgeous, partially clad would-be starlets everywhere you look—seems ideal for an enterprising criminal with a taste for the cinematic. Besides, Chili’s got an idea for a killer movie, though it could very possibly kill him to get it made.

Rogue Male


Geoffrey Household - 1939
    An Englishman plans to assassinate the dictator of a European country. But he is foiled at the last moment and falls into the hands of ruthless and inventive torturers. They devise for him an ingenious and diplomatic death but, for once, they bungle the job and he escapes. But England provides no safety from his pursuers - and the Rogue Male must strip away all the trappings of status and civilization as the hunter becomes a hunted animal.

A Kiss Before Dying


Ira Levin - 1953
    Now a modern classic, as gripping in its tautly plotted action as it is penetrating in its exploration of a criminal mind, it tells the shocking tale of a young man who will stop at nothing--not even murder--to get where he wants to go. For he has dreams; plans. He also has charm, good looks, sex appeal, intelligence. And he has a problem. Her name is Dorothy; she loves him, and she's pregnant. The solution may demand desperate measures. But, then, he looks like the kind of guy who could get away with murder. Compellingly, step by determined step, the novel follows this young man in his execution of one plan he had neither dreamed nor foreseen. Nor does he foresee how inexorably he will be enmeshed in the consequences of his own extreme deed.

Noir: Three Novels of Suspense


Richard Matheson - 1997
    Originally published in the 1950s, at the very beginning of Matheson's distinguished career, these page-turning classics have been largely out-of-print for decades. Now readers everywhere can savor three unforgettable tales of crime, corruption, and cold-blooded murder. . . .Someone Is Bleeding--Dave Newton has fallen hard for Peggy, a leggy blonde with a lurid past and a heartbreaking smile. But as bloody corpses begin to litter his path, Dave is forced to confront the terrifying possibility that the woman he loves is a deranged killer!Fury on Sunday--In the wee hours of one fateful Sunday morning, a homicidal maniac embarks on a rampage of terror and violence that threatens everyone who crosses his path, culminating in a deadly confrontation in a Manhattan apartment building.Ride the Nightmare--Chris and Helen had the perfect suburban life--until Helen discovers her husband's guilty secret. Overnight, their peaceful existence descends into a vortex of fear and brutality that may cost them the life of their only child!