Book picks similar to
Death of a Nurse by Richard Marsten


mystery
future-reading
ed-mcbain
mid-20th-century-american-crime

A Perry Mason Casebook: The Gilded Lily / The Daring Decoy / The Fiery Fingers / The Lucky Loser


Erle Stanley Gardner - 1993
    The case of the sulky girl -- The case of the careless kitten -- The case of the fiery fingers.

Love You to Death


Shannon K. Butcher - 2009
    LOVE YOU TO DEATH It's been days since reporter Elise McBride has heard from her sister, Ashley. She's convinced Ashley has met with some kind of foul play, especially when she learns that bodies of other missing women have surfaced in and around Chicago--all victims of a brutal serial killer. Convinced her sister is still alive, Elise vows to risk everything to save her... The last thing ex-cop Trent Brady needs is more blood on his hands. Yet when he catches Elise breaking into her sister's house, full of reckless determination and fear, he knows she needs his help. But just as desire ignites between them, a twisted madman sets his sights on Elise. Hell-bent on possessing her for himself, this psychopath won't rest until he has his perfect woman.

The Assistant Murderer


Dashiell Hammett - 1926
    A classic mystery from Dashiell Hammett.

Fifty Candles


Earl Derr Biggers - 1926
    From Pulpville Press.

And Then There Were None/The Secret Adversary/Towards Zero/N or M?


Agatha Christie - 1992
    

Bullitt


Robert L. Pike - 1963
    It is Lieutenant Clancy's job to see that he stays alive to do it. It may not sound too difficult when you have two loyal detectives like Sergeants Kaproski and Stanton to help you keep a round-the-clock watch on the hoodlum, but it proves almost beyond them.Part of the "NFT/BFI Film Classics" series, this novel was made into a film starring Steve McQueen, featuring one of the most memorable car chase scenes in film, through the streets of San Francisco.

Miss One Thousand Spring Blossoms


John Dudley Ball - 1968
    Dick Seaton is a shy, handsome American whose business takes him to Japan to close a very big deal. In violation of a timeless taboo, Dick and Kanno spend slow, tantalizing days falling in love. Then Dick discovers that Kanno’s love was paid for by his businessmen hosts. Sensing his rage and hurt, Kanno flees in confusion. And, too late, Dick realizes the truth—that she really loved him. Now, a stranger in a strange, exotic land, he must find her—and seduce her back into his life. Love her for a night… and you will remember her for a lifetime.

Hell or High Water


Joy Castro - 2012
    While investigating her story, she also becomes fixated on the search for a missing tourist in the French Quarter. As Nola's work leads her into a violent criminal underworld, she's forced to face disturbing truths from her own past and is confronted with the question: In the aftermath of devastation, who is responsible for rebuilding what's been broken?Vividly rendered in razor-sharp prose, this haunting thriller is a riveting journey of trust betrayed―and the courageous struggle to rebuild. Fast-paced, atmospheric, and with a knockout twist, Hell or High Water features an unforgettable heroine as fascinating and multilayered as New Orleans itself.

Build My Gallows High


Geoffrey Homes - 1946
    Living in Nevada, bothered by nobody, he runs a little gas station, gets in a lot of fishing, and might even be falling for a local girl. Then, out of the blue, his past comes back to haunt him. Blackmailed into doing just one more job, he's forced to revisit the life he fled—in particular, the seductive Mumsie McGonigle. It's not long before Bailey realizes that a trap has been set for him. The novel, scripted by the author, went on in the hands of Jacques Tourneur to become the cinema's most celebrated work of "film noir," starring Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, and Jane Greer.The Film Ink series presents the novels that inspired the work of some of the most celebrated directors of our time. While each novel is first and foremost a classic in its own right, these books offer the dedicated cinephile a richer understanding of the most illustrious films of American and European cinema.

The Dead Key


D.M. Pulley - 2015
    In the confusion that followed, the keys to the vault’s safe-deposit boxes were lost.In the years since, Cleveland’s wealthy businessmen kept the truth buried in the abandoned high-rise. The ransacked offices and forgotten safe-deposit boxes remain locked in time, until young engineer Iris Latch stumbles upon them during a renovation survey. What begins as a welcome break from her cubicle becomes an obsession as Iris unravels the bank’s sordid past. With each haunting revelation, Iris follows the looming shadow of the past deeper into the vault—and soon realizes that the key to the mystery comes at an astonishing price.

The Sinaloa Story


Barry Gifford - 1998
    Ava is a Mexican prostitute, beautiful and no victim of circumstance. When DelRay falls in love with her at the drive-in whorehouse where she is the prize, she seizes the chance to break free. They take off for Sinaloa ,Texas, the lone-dog state where "nothin’ good ever happens." The far-out border flunkies they meet — Thankful Priest, the one-eyed former football player; Indio Desacato, Ava’s pimp and a small-town racketeer; Arkadelphia Quantrill Smith, an octogenarian whose father marched with Shelby in the Iron Brigade; and many others — fill out the sinister and electrifying ride.

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!

Black Hats: A Novel of Wyatt Earp and Al Capone


Patrick Culhane - 2007
    The Prohibition era has just begun, and the Wild West is a fading memory. Legendary lawman Wyatt Earp is spending his golden years in Los Angeles as a private detective--and sometime consultant on cowboy movies. Bored and restless, he jumps at the chance to go east to help the son of his late friend Doc Holliday. The young man's mother fears her gambler son will lose everything, including his life, in wild and woolly Manhattan, where Johnny Holliday has opened one of the first, and glitziest, speakeasy nightclubs.Wyatt's onetime deputy, Bat Masterson, joins the defense of young Holliday against a new breed of badmen--mobsters led by Brooklyn's brash, brutal Alphonse Capone. Young Al and his sadistic boss Frankie Yale have targeted Holliday's nightspot, where jazz-baby diva Texas Guinan is welcoming suckers and money is flowing like bootleg beer. . . .As the Twenties (and machine guns) start to roar, the lawless lawmen move through a glittering world of beautiful showgirls, ruthless gangsters, and high-rolling gamblers--taking one last glorious stand that makes the O.K. Corral shoot-out pale, signaling the end of their legend and the beginning of Scarface Al's."Black Hats" is a thrilling and colorful ride into a time and place where good guys and bad guys blur, and big-city dreams turn on a dime. In vivid detail, the enigmatic Earp's character draws into sharp focus, while Capone's young personality comes alive, foreshadowing the master criminal he would become. Wearing another hat, Patrick Culhane is one of suspense fiction's most respected writers, and his newest, most innovative blockbuster is grand, enormous fun.

The Web / Bad Love


Jonathan Kellerman
    

The Weight


Andrew Vachss - 2010
    When he’s picked out of a photo array in a vicious rape case, the cops find his apartment empty. A stakeout catches Sugar when he returns . . . carrying a loaded pistol. The sex-crime cops get nothing from their interrogation, but a streetwise detective figures out why Sugar offers no alibi: at the time of the rape, a holiday-weekend break-in job was being pulled at a jewelry store. The DA offers Sugar two options: give up his partners in the jewelry heist and walk, or plead to the rape he didn’t commit—and he’ll toss in the gun charge. For Sugar, that’s not two options; he takes the weight.  When Sugar finishes his time, his money is waiting for him, held by Solly, the mastermind behind the jewelry heist. But Solly tells Sugar that one of the heist crew was actually sent by another planner—and that planner has just died. In Sugar’s world, all loose threads must be cut. He suspects that there’s more to this job than what Solly is telling him. But nothing he suspects or imagines can prepare him for what he finds . . .