The Black Path of Fear (1944) tells of a man who runs away to Havana with an American gangster's wife, followed by the vengeful husband, who kills the woman and frames her lover, leaving him a stranger in a strange land, menaced on all sides and fighting for his life.

    In 1946 New York, Ellen, a world-renowned musician, is suffering from the effects of her latest mental breakdown. Amongst other challenges, a chance meeting with a folk singer from her past causes her psychological well-being to rapidly deteriorate. Over the following terrifying weeks, Ellen finds herself becoming both a criminal and a victim as she attempts to contend with the darkness within.

    When Dick commits one crime and plans another, the police arrest him for a crime he actually did not commit. Dick attempts to reconcile with his family and find his way out of LA’s seedy underworld. You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up was a bestseller when originally published in 1938 and is a noir classic.

    After all, there's nothing wrong with being a bellboy at a respectable hotel like the Manton -- that is, until she came along. Marcia Hillis. The perfect woman. Beautiful. Experienced. Older and wiser. The only woman to ever measure up to that other her -- the one whose painful rejection Dusty can't quite put from his mind. But while Dusty has designs on Marcia, Marcia has an agenda of her own. One that threatens to pull the Manton inside-out, use Dusty up for all he's worth and leave him reeling and on the run, the whole world at his heels. A richly-imagined crime narrative of the Oedipal and betrayal, A Swell-Looking Babe is Thompson at his very best -- a cornerstone in Thompson's enduring legacy as the Dimestore Dostoyevsky of American fiction.

    Cassidy had two. One was Mildred, the wife who kept him chained with ties of fear and jealousy and paralyzing sexual need. The other was Doris, a frail angel with a 100-proof halo and a bottle instead of a harp. With those two, Cassidy found that the ride to hell could be twice as fast.Cassidy's Girl has all the traits that made its author a virtuoso of the hard-boiled: a fiercely compelling ploy; characters who self-destruct in spectacularly unpredictable ways; and an insider's knowledge of all the routes to the bottom.

    The one book Black Lizard never published, it's the dream-like tale of a man after a jailbreak, who meets up with the woman of his dreams... and his nightmares. Phenomenal work of the period, ranking with the best efforts of Thompson, Woolrich, Goodis et al.

    Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett's tour de force of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness.

    But when Mike got a load of the set-up at the Brighton mansion, two things changed his mind: a slimy private secretary named Montrose, and a phony doctor whose theories began where Freud's left off. Both of them were just a little too anxious to convince the stubborn redhead that Phyllis was "a very sick girl." And Mike Shayne was a man who liked to make up his own mind.

    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

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

    In this classic noir novel, a private eye from St. Louis, who likes his steak rare, his liquor hard, and his women fallen, arrives at the small town of Paulton to protect his wealthy client's daughter from a suspicious religious cult. Throughout the span of the case, he confronts Paulton's mob boss, avenges his partner's death, and falls for a classic femme fatale named Princess.

    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!

    Two delinquents and a girl encounter real trouble when professionals take over their planned robbery.The novel was adapted by Jean-Luc Godard for his film Bande à part (Band of Outsiders, 1964).

    The St. Louis Post-Dispatch calls Leonard, “the world’s greatest cops ‘n’ robbers novelist.” The Seattle Times says, “Leonard is more than just one of the all-time greats of crime fiction. He’s fast becoming an authentic American icon.” No matter where you wish to place the man who created the character of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, lately of TV’s hit series Justified, in the pantheon of mystery and noir detective fiction demigods—John D. MacDonald, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and the like—there is no denying that nobody does it better than the Grand Master Elmore Leonard!

    A COP HAD KILLED HIMSELF, AND EVERY CROOK IN TOWN KNEW THAT WOULD BE SURE TO BRING ON THE BIG HEAT. Why did they fear a dead man? Dave Bannion, homicide sergeant, fought for the answer to that question. The dead man was a police clerk who shot himself for no obvious reason. That was Bannion's first judgment, until a girl named Lucy presented a quite different picture of the dead man from the one he had shown to the world and to his fastidious, glacial wife. Bannion's chief, Lieutenant Wilks, wanted the case closed and speculation ended quickly and tightly. So did Max Stone and Lagana, who held the city in a sinister, underworld grip. But why? Why did they all fear a dead man . . . ?