The Friends of Eddie Coyle


George V. Higgins - 1970
    But a cop named Foley is on to Eddie and he's leaning on him to finger Scalisi, a gang leader with a lot to hide. And then there's Dillon-a full-time bartender and part-time contract killer--pretending to be Eddie's friend. Wheeling, dealing, chasing, and stealing--that's Eddie, and he's got lots of friends.

Tough Luck


Jason Starr - 2003
    He works hard at a neighborhood seafood market in Brooklyn putting fish on ice. He’s got a nice girlfriend. He even delayed college a year, to help his sick dad. But Mickey’s got a problem. A customer at the fish store, Angelo Santoro, keeps asking Mickey to place bets for him and Angelo keeps losing. As Angelo gets further in the hole, his bad luck is turning out to be Mickey’s too. Now Mickey’s got his bookie after him and Angelo’s showing him the butt of his pistol rather than paying him back. So when his best friend, Chris, asks Mickey to join him on a can’t-lose caper, Mickey decides to go along. But, surefire schemes often have a way of backfiring, and this one is sending Mickey into an uncharted part of Brooklyn, where fish like Chris and Mickey have trouble just staying alive.

Soft Touch


John D. MacDonald - 1958
    Once Jerry had a beautiful bride and a good salary at her old man's successful business - that was before his wife turned into a lush. Before the business started to go to pieces. And before the lazy afternoon when Vince Biskay, an old army buddy, rings his doorbell and makes an intriguing proposition. Vince promises to bring excitement into Jerry's life - and money - but this is a plan that leaves only death and destruction in its wake.

Hard Rain Falling


Don Carpenter - 1964
    The novel follows the adventures of Jack Levitt, an orphaned teenager living off his wits in the fleabag hotels and seedy pool halls of Portland, Oregon. Jack befriends Billy Lancing, a young black runaway and pool hustler extraordinaire. A heist gone wrong gets Jack sent to reform school, from which he emerges embittered by abuse and solitary confinement. In the meantime Billy has joined the middle class: married, fathered a son, acquired a business and a mistress. But neither Jack nor Billy can escape their troubled pasts, and they will meet again in San Quentin before their strange double drama comes to a violent and revelatory end.

Rear Window


Cornell Woolrich - 1942
    His name represents steamy, suspenseful fiction, chilling encounters on the dark and sultry landscape of urban America in the 1930s and 1940s. Here, in this special collection, are his classic thrilers, including 'Rear Window', the story of Hal Jeffries who, trapped in his apartment because of a broken leg, takes to watching his neighbours through his rear window, and becomes certain that one of those neighbours is a murderer. Also included are such haunting, heart-stopping tales as those involving a man who finds his wife buried alive; a girl trapped with a deranged murderer who likes to knife his victims while dancing; and a woman seizing her chance to escape a sadistic husband, only to find her dream go terrifyingly wrong.Rear window --I won't take a minute --Speak to me of death --The dancing detective --The light in the window --The corpse next door --You'll never see me again --The screaming laugh --Dead on her feet --Waltz --The book that squealed --Death escapes the eye --For the rest of her life

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.

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 Hot Spot


Charles Williams - 1953
    Merciless in its suspense, flawless in its grasp of the ways in which ordinary people hurtle over the edge, The Hot Spot is a superb example of fifties roman noir.

The Double Take


Roy Huggins - 1946
    Bailey investigates the woman in an attempt to stop the extortion, and as the story unfolds, there are many twists and turns. Following The Double Take, Huggins turned his attention to creating memorable TV shows such as “Maverick,” “The Fugitive,” “City of Angels,” and “The Rockford Files.” Huggins passed away in 2002 at age 87.

Killshot


Elmore Leonard - 1989
    Marshal Raylan Givens of TV’s Justified fame), and, quite simply, some of the very best suspense novels written over the past century. Killshot is prime Leonard—a riveting story of a husband and wife caught in the crossfire when they foil a criminal act and are forced to defend themselves when the legal system fails them from the murderous wrath of a pair of vengeful killers. When it comes to cops and criminals stories, Killshot and Leonard are as good as it gets—further proof why “the King Daddy of crime writers” (Seattle Times) deserves his current place among John D. MacDonald, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and the other legendary greats of the noir fiction genre.

Laura


Vera Caspary - 1942
    No man could resist her charms—not even the hardboiled NYPD detective sent to find out who turned her into a faceless corpse. As this tough cop probes the mystery of Laura's death, he becomes obsessed with her strange power. Soon he realizes he's been seduced by a dead woman—or has he? Laura won lasting renown as an Academy Award-nominated 1944 film, the greatest noir romance of all time. Vera Caspary's equally haunting novel is remarkable for its stylish, hardboiled writing, its electrifying plot twists, and its darkly complex characters—including a woman who stands as the ultimate femme fatale.

Thieves Like Us


Edward Anderson - 1937
    When three small-time country gangsters break jail, they return, like moths to a flame, to the only life they know - smalltown bank-robbing. And when Bowie, the youngest of them, falls in love with Keechie, one of the older gangster's cousins, it becomes a classic tale of love with nowhere to hide and no hope of reprieve.First published in 1937, 'Thieves Like Us' was powerfully adapted for the screen by Nicholas Ray in 1948 as 'They Live by Night' and once again under its original title by Robert Altman in 1973.

Fun & Games


Duane Swierczynski - 2011
    His latest gig comes replete with an illegally squatting B-movie actress who rants about hit men who specialize in making deaths look like accidents. Unfortunately, it's the real deal. Hardie finds himself squared off against a small army of the most lethal men in the world: The Accident People.It's nothing personal-the girl just happens to be the next name on their list. For Hardie, though, it's intensely personal. He's not about to let more innocent people die. Not on his watch.

The Moving Target


Ross Macdonald - 1949
    Now one of Sampson's friends may have arranged his kidnapping.Lew Archer follows the clues from the canyon sanctuaries of the mega-rich to jazz joints where you get beaten up between sets.Welcome to the first Lew Archer, private investigator - a roving conscience who walks the treacherous frontier between criminal guilt and human sin. You are sure to find that Ross Macdonald's "The Moving Target" blends sex, greed, and family hatred into an explosively readable crime novel.

You Were Never Really Here


Jonathan Ames - 2013
    Solitary and haunted, he prefers to be invisible. He doesn't allow himself friends or lovers and makes a living rescuing young girls from the deadly clutches of the sex trade. But when a high-ranking New York politician hires him to extricate his teenage daughter from a Manhattan brothel, Joe uncovers a web of corruption that even he may not be able to unravel. When the men on his trail take the only person left in the world who matters to him, he forsakes his pledge to do no harm. If anyone can kill his way to the truth, it's Joe...Novelist, essayist, creator of the beloved TV series Bored to Death and Blunt Talk, Jonathan Ames is celebrated not only for his comic sensibilities and devotion to the absurd but for his lurid attraction to inner demons. In this shocking and suspenseful thriller, the author goes darker than noir, with an ass-kicking and psychologically tormented guardian angel who rescues others but refuses to save himself.