Kiss Her Goodbye (Hard Case Crime #8)


Allan Guthrie - 2005
    When they don't pay it back, they get a visit from Joe Hope. — But now Joe's got troubles of his own. His teenage daughter's found dead, an apparent suicide. Then the police arrest him for murder. But for once, Joe's innocent--and with help from Scotland's hardest men (and one of Scotland's hardest women), he sets out to find who's framed him and deliver his own brutal brand of justice.

Branded Woman (Hard Case Crime #11)


Wade Miller - 1952
    Until the day a shadowy rival known only as The Trader has her abducted and scarred for life as a warning to stay out of his way.Now Cay’s on her way to Mazatlan, where one of The Trader’s men has been spotted. There’s a big deal going down – but she’s not there to make a score. Just to settle one.

The Gutter and the Grave


Curt Cannon - 1958
    But that was before he caught his wife cheating on him with one of his operatives and took it out on the man with the butt end of a .45.   Now Matt makes his home on the streets of New York and his only companions are the city’s bartenders. But trouble still knows how to find him, and when Johnny Bridges shows up from the old neighborhood, begging for Matt’s help, Cordell finds himself drawn into a case full of beautiful women and bloody murder. It’s just like the old days – only this time, when the beatings come, he may wind up on the receiving end...

Little Girl Lost


Richard Aleas - 2004
    So how did she wind up shot to death on the roof of New York s seediest strip club? It s up to detective John Blake to uncover his ex-girlfriend s secret life as a striptease queen. But the deeper he digs, the darker the secrets he uncovers, until a shattering face-off in an East Village tenement changes his life forever. First time in paperback--a stunning debut novel from an author whose stories have been selected for BEST MYSTERY STORIES OF THE YEAR and THE YEAR S BEST HORROR STORIES, as well as short-listed for the Shamus Award by the Private Eye Writers of America.

Easy Death


Daniel Boyd - 2014
    ...and two robbers hired by a local crime boss manage to heist half a million dollars from an armored car. But getting the money and getting away with it are two different things, especially with a blizzard coming down, the cops in hot pursuit, and a double-crossing gambler and a murderous park ranger threatening to turn this white Christmas blood red.

Lucky at Cards


Sheldon Lord - 1964
      Together they hatch an ingenious scheme to get rid of her husband. But in life as in poker, the other player sometimes has an ace up his sleeve.

The Last Match (Hard Case Crime #25)


David Dodge - 2006
    Soon he's forced to flee the country with both the police and the heiress on his trail. Original.

Honey in His Mouth


Lester Dent - 2009
    Original.

Die a Little


Megan Abbott - 2005
    This ingenious twist on a classic noir tale tells the story of Lora King, a schoolteacher, and her brother Bill, a junior investigator with the district attorney's office. Lora's comfortable, suburban life is jarringly disrupted when Bill falls in love with a mysterious young woman named Alice Steele, a Hollywood wardrobe assistant with a murky past. Made sisters by marriage but not by choice, the bond between Lora and Alice is marred by envy and mistrust. Spurred on by inconsistencies in Alice's personal history and possibly jealous of Alice's hold on her brother, Lora finds herself lured into the dark alleys and mean streets of seamy Los Angeles. Assuming the role of amateur detective, she uncovers a shadowy world of drugs, prostitution, and ultimately, murder. Lora's fascination with Alice's "sins" increases in direct proportion to the escalation of her own relationship with Mike Standish, a charmingly amoral press agent who appears to know more about his old friend Alice than he reveals. The deeper Lora digs to uncover Alice's secrets, the more her own life begins to resemble Alice's sinister past -- and present. Steeped in atmospheric suspense and voyeuristic appeal, Die a Little shines as a dark star among Hollywood lights.

False Negative (Hard Case Crime #107)


Joseph Koenig - 2012
    The worst was bad enough to get him fired - but the best landed him a new job, penning lurid articles for Real Detective magazine, one of the last of the true-crime pulps. Only the case they've got him working on, involving a beauty pageant contestant found dead on an Atlantic City beach, is one some very powerful men would rather see covered up than covered. And if Adam keeps digging, he may find he's digging his own grave...

Blood on the Mink


Robert Silverberg - 1962
    currency plates for an organized crime gang - and the government wants to put a stop to it. But how can they get close enough to bring down the criminal enterprise from the inside? By snatching a west coast crime boss' right-hand man and sending a federal agent undercover in the man's place. His assignment: pose as a buyer of counterfeit bills and try to get the engraver out. Which works fine - until he crosses paths with someone who knows the man he replaced... A lost masterpiece from science fiction Grandmaster Robert Silverberg, published as a complete novel for the very first time!

The Getaway


Jim Thompson - 1958
    But when for the first time in Doc's long criminal career, his shot doesn't hit the mark, everything begins to fall apart. And Doc begins to realize that the perfect bank robbery isn't complete without the perfect getaway to back it up.THE GETAWAY is the classic story of a bank robbery gone horribly wrong, where the smallest mistakes have catastrophic consequences, and shifting loyalties lead to betrayals and chaos. The basis for the classic Steve McQueen film of the same name, as well as a 1994 remake with Alec Baldwin, Thompson's novel set the bar for every heist story that followed--but as Thompson's proved time and again, nobody's ever done it better than the master.

The Comedy is Finished


Donald E. Westlake - 2012
    But not everyone is ready to let it go. Not aging comedian Koo Davis, friend to generals and presidents and veteran of countless USO tours to buck up American troops in the field. And not the five remaining members of the self-proclaimed People's Revolutionary Army, who've decided that kidnapping Koo Davis would be the perfect way to bring their cause back to life...The final, previously unpublished novel from the legendary Donald Westlake!

So Nude, So Dead


Ed McBain - 1952
    Now he was just an addict, scraping to get by, letting his hunger for drugs consume him. But a man’s life can always get worse - as Ray Stone discovers when he wakes up beside a beautiful nightclub singer only to find her dead... and 16 ounces of pure heroin missing. On the run from the law, desperate to prove his innocence and find a killer, Ray also faces another foe, merciless and unforgiving: his growing craving for a fix...

Web of the City


Harlan Ellison - 1958
    It is published here in its original form by the 'Dr' who risked his tail and talent to write this book.