Book picks similar to
Dial "M" for Man by Orrie Hitt


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The Other Side Of Bad


R.O. Barton - 2013
    Weeks after Tucker foils an assassination attempt on a client, he's confronted at his remote country home by men intent on killing him. Meanwhile, Tucker is forced to relive his secret violent past during an interview with a Nashville billionaire who wants his wife's "accidental" death investigated. But, before Tucker can take on a new assignment, he must deal with who wants to kill him and why. Praise for "The Other Side of Bad" The Other Side of Bad, by R.O. Barton, like its title, is a gotcha; gotcha and won't let you go until you've been through an assassination attempt in Nashville, a face-off in a Louisiana biker bar, the mother of all drug-deals-gone-bad in the wilds of Mexico, and more between the scenes action than a Rambo night out.Barton casts his characters with disarming frankness-characters large and eccentric-with arcane talents and a taste for brinkmanship. The Other Side of Bad is visual, visceral, and a trip to the other side.-Steven Prati Author of, Cheers from the Bull & Finch Pub

Home Is the Sailor (Hard Case Crime #7)


Day Keene - 1952
    — But could any man ever have her? — After years at sea, Swede Nelson just wanted to find a nice girl and settle down. What he found was Corliss Mason: sensual irresistible - and deadly. Soon Swede's helping Corliss cover up a killing, but how long can they get away with murder? And why - even when he's in her arms - can't he shake that feeling that he's being set up?A writer for radio, television, movies, pulp magazines and paperbacks, DAY KEENE created some of the most memorable noir nightmares ever penned. HOME IS THE SALIOR is his greatest book, a tale of passion and obession that makes James M. Cain and Jim Thompson look tame -- now available of the first time in decades!

In a Small Motel


John D. MacDonald - 2017
    She owns a small motor-inn motel on a major highway in South Georgia. The summer heat is still strong in the waning days of October, and she is tired from a long summer season. As the evening progresses, Ginny’s motel begins to fill-up. There is Johnny Benton, a strange motel guest who insists on parking his car behind the motel, a would-be suitor named Don Ferris, a guest that is the catalyst for a long and frightening night, and then there is the dead husband whose long shadow is cast across Ginny’s life like a long heavy rain...

Madball


Fredric Brown - 1953
    . . It was only cheap glass, a fraud, a come-on for the suckers who paid Doc Magus to gaze into its depths and tell them tomorrow would be better. And Doc--a decent man, a smart man--pitied them. Yet tonight, even Doc had to believe the Madball. There was nothing left to lead him to the money--enough money to spring him free of the raucous, sordid world of the pitchmen and the pickled punks, the cotton candy and the kewpie dolls--and the belly dancers who needed him for all-night alibis.Doc was shrewd, but not quite shrewd enough. Someone else knew about the $42,000--a specialist in death, who was only yards away. . .MADBALL is a novel of one traveling show, and of the lives of its carneys, who live to close to the edge of frenzy.

To Live & Die in L. A.


Gerald Petievich - 1984
    For one thing, one of his dealers, Max ("the Money Man") Waxman, has just ripped him off. For another, his partner, Carmine Falcone, is in jail and threatening to cooperate with the government unless Masters gets him out fast.Then there are the Feds who have been trying to nail Masters for years. Two Treasury agents, John Vukovich and Richard Chance, are breathing down his neck. Chance is a reckless hotshot who doesn't believe in playing by the rules; he'll get evidence anyway he can. If he catches Masters and makes it stick, he's a hero. But if Chance is caught he's finished - unless he's willing to sacrifice Vukovich to save himself.

The Murder Map: DI Jack Frost series 6 (DI Jack Frost Prequel)


Danny Miller - 2019
    But then signs of a burglary are discovered, and Frost senses there’s more to the story than meets the eye – even though the only thing taken was a worthless amateur painting.Then a young girl is abducted outside the school, an infamous gangster fresh from prison arrives in the area, and dead bodies start turning up in the woods. As Frost and his team dig deeper, everything seems to lead back to Ivan Fielding’s murky lifetime of misdeeds.Will they find the answers they need before the dead man’s past puts them all at risk?

Gulf Coast Girl


Charles Williams - 1955
    On the boat, a coffee pot is still warm. Clearly, the boat has not been abandoned for long. But what has happened to its occupants? The answer lies in a log book in which our protagonist, Bill Manning, has written his story.

Double Feature


Donald E. Westlake - 1977
    Westlake novellas, A Travesty and Ordo, one hilarious and one heartbreaking, are both set in the film world.

Under the Skin


James Carlos Blake - 2003
    Raised on an isolated West Texas ranch that he was forced to flee at age eighteen following the violent breakup of his foster family, Jimmy has found a home and a profession in Galveston -- and a mentor in Rose Maceo.Looming over Jimmy's story like an ancient curse is the specter of his fearsome father. Their ties of blood, evident since Jimmy's boyhood, have been drawn tighter over time. Then a strange and beautiful girl enters his life and a swift and terrifying sequence of events is set in motion. Jimmy must cross the border and go deep into the brutal and merciless country of his ancestors -- where the story's harrowing climax closes a circle of destiny many years in the making.

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

Say It With Bullets


Richard Powell - 1953
    Leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, Bill Wayne journeys across the West to discover which one of his former army buddies shot him in the back and left him for dead.

The Delta Factor


Mickey Spillane - 1967
    A fist-slamming, sex-snarling thriller by the creator of Mike Hammer and Tiger Mann. Mickey Spillane slings Morgan the raider, super-crook turned U.S. Agent, into a one-man mission against the hoodlum army of a Latin dictator. His target: a dungeon cell of a torture place; his sidekick, a scorching babe who says no if it kills her...Watch Morgan: the new, gut-slugging, gutter-rough hero as only MICKEY makes 'em.

This Girl for Hire


G.G. Fickling - 1957
    Sexy Los Angeles private detective Honey West matches wits with four murder suspects as she investigates the deaths of a washed-up Hollywood entertainer, a beautiful woman, and a poisoning victim, in a new edition of a crime novel first published in the 1950s.

The Guilty Ones


Ross Macdonald - 1952
    Reginald Harlan, M.A. Of course Archer generally didn't like people whose names started with a single syllable. Harlan hired Lew to find his sister. A respectable school mistress that has run off with a bohemian artist type. But he finds more than what he expected when he has a corpse literally dumped on him!

Thieves Fall Out (Hard Case Crime)


Gore Vidal - 1953
    The lost pulp crime novel by great American novelist Gore Vidal! Hired to smuggle an ancient artefact out of Egypt, Pete Wells finds himself the target of killers and femme fatales - and just one step away from triggering a revolution that will set Cairo aflame!