Book picks similar to
Brainquake by Samuel Fuller


hard-case-crime
crime
fiction
mystery

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.

Cut Me In


Hunt Collins - 1954
    But when I found him shot to death on the floor of his office, I had no choice. I had to track down the person responsible. And not just to lay Del to rest, either. Next to his body, the office safe was wide open, and a contract worth millions was missing...From the pen of MWA Grand Master Ed McBain comes this unforgettable story of warring agents and Hollywood dealmaking, murder and scandal—and passions igniting in the dark of night. First publication in nearly 60 years! Features a brand new cover painting by legendary illustrator Robert McGinnis Also featuring Now Die In It, a bonus McBain novelette from the pulps, starring private eye Matt Cordell from THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE Cover art by Robert McGinnis

The Vengeful Virgin


Gil Brewer - 1958
    But that's the life she was trapped in - until she met Jack.Now Shirley and Jack have a plan to put the old man out of his misery and walk away with a suitcase full of cash. But there's nothing like money to come between lovers – money, and other women...

Bust


Ken Bruen - 2006
    When you hire someone to kill your wife, don’t hire a psychopath.2. Drano is not the best tool for getting rid of a dead body.3. Those locks on hotel room doors? Not very secure.4. A curly blond wig isn’t much of a disguise.5. Secrets can kill.

Fade to Blonde


Max Phillips - 2004
    She had nice straight shoulders. There was nothing wrong between them and her open-toed shoes, so I guess the trouble must have been somewhere behind those blue-gray eyes. They'd be trouble, of course. She looked up and called, 'Is your name, Corson?' " From the first paragraph, Max Phillips's pitch-pure ear sets the tone; we have entered a back-alley world where men are tough and women are easy; where dirty secrets clog the citadels of power. With its staccato dialogue and its strip-club fusion of sex and vengeance, Fade to Blonde ironically recalls a more innocent age.

Losers Live Longer (Hard Case Crime #59)


Russell Atwood - 2009
    The death of legendary private eye George Rowell looked like an accident; but searching for the truth behind it will put down-and-out East Village detective Payton Sherwood on the corpse-littered trail of a runaway investment scam artist, a drug-addicted reality TV star, and the bewitching beauty whose appearance set it all in motion...

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 Secret Lives of Married Women


Elissa Wald - 2013
    As one sister prepares for the thorniest trial of her career and the other fends off ominous advances from a construction worker laboring on the house next door, both find themselves pushed to the edge, and confronted by discoveries about themselves and their lovers that shock and disturb them.

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!

Stop This Man!


Peter Rabe - 1955
    When the thirty-six pounds of gold he steals from a lab turns out to be radioactive, down-and-out thief Tony Catell has to stay one step ahead of the FBI while trying desperately to find someone willing to take it off his hands.

So Many Doors


Oakley Hall - 1950
    It begins with a beautiful woman dead, murdered—Vassilia Caroline Baird, known to all simply as V. That’s where this extraordinary novel begins. But the story it tells begins years earlier, on a struggling farm in the shadow of the Great Depression and among the brawling "cat skinners" of Southern California, driving graders and bulldozers to tame the American West. And the story that unfolds, in the masterful hands of acclaimed author Oakley Hall, is a lyrical outpouring of hunger and grief, of jealousy and corruption, of raw sexual yearning and the tragedy of the destroyed lives it leaves in its wake. Unpublished for more than half a century, SO MANY DOORS is Hall’s masterpiece, an excoriating vision of human nature at its most brutal, and one of the most powerful books you will ever read.

Robbie's Wife (Hard Case Crime #29)


Russell Hill - 2007
    But what he found wasn’t solitude and peace—it was temptation. Because Maggie Barlow, the wife of the man putting him up, had something irresistible about her. Something that could drive a man to kill...

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 Twenty-Year Death


Ariel S. Winter - 2012
       1931— The body found in the gutter in France led the police inspector to the dead man’s beautiful daughter—and to her hot-tempered American husband.   1941— A hardboiled private eye hired to keep a movie studio’s leading lady happy uncovers the truth behind the brutal slaying of a Hollywood starlet.   1951— A desperate man pursuing his last chance at redemption finds himself with blood on his hands and the police on his trail...   Three complete novels that, taken together, tell a single epic story, about an author whose life is shattered when violence and tragedy consume the people closest to him. It is an ingenious and emotionally powerful debut performance from literary detective and former bookseller Ariel S. Winter, one that establishes this talented newcomer as a storyteller of the highest caliber.

Fifty-to-One


Charles Ardai - 2008
    But what if, instead of having been founded 50 books ago, Hard Case Crime had been founded 50 years ago, by a rascal out to make a quick buck off the popularity of pulp fiction? Such a fellow might make a few enemies – especially after publishing a supposed non-fiction account of a heist at a Mob-run nightclub, actually penned by an 18-year-old showgirl. With both the cops and the crooks after them, our heroes are about to learn that reading and writing pulp novels is a lot more fun than living them...