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...

    Betrayed, his money stolen and his battered carcass left for dead, Lennon is on a one-way mission to find out who is responsible--and to get back his loot. But the robbery has sent a violent ripple effect through the streets of Philadelphia. And now a dirty cop, the Russian and Italian mobs, the mayor's hired gun, and a keyboard player in a college rock band maneuver for position as this adrenaline-fueled novel twists and turns its way toward its explosive conclusion.One thing's for sure: This cast of characters wakes up in a much different world by novel's end--if they wake up at all, in Duane Swierczynski's The Wheelman.

    a sinister danse macabre, the first steps of which are taken when a young army deserter falls into the hands of a wealthy and cruel woman planning to kill her husband and step-daughter.But, unexpectedly, Fate intervenes and sets a deadly trap for - The Wary Transgressor...

    Growing up in the Atlantic City mob has left its mark on Anthony Russo. He wants to go legit, but sometimes the lawful world can prove to be just as dirty. And someone elses murder may be the only way to prevent his own.

    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.

    His territory: the brothels of San Francisco. But the path was littered with bodies and broken dreams - some of them his. 1952 under alias Douglas Ring. 1963 as self Richard S. Prather.

    Young Stan Carlisle is working as a carny, and he wonders how a man could fall so low. There’s no way in hell, he vows, that anything like that will ever happen to him.And since Stan is clever and ambitious and not without a useful streak of ruthlessness, soon enough he’s going places. Onstage he plays the mentalist with a cute assistant (before long his harried wife), then he graduates to full-blown spiritualist, catering to the needs of the rich and gullible in their well-upholstered homes. It looks like the world is Stan’s for the taking. At least for now.

    But when his partner becomes victim number two, it looks like open-and-shut grudge killings. That is, until a third detective buys it.ED MCBAIN'S FIRST 87th PRECINCT NOVEL

    Sallis combines murder, treachery and payback in a sinister plot with resonances of 1940s pulp fiction and film noir. Told through a cinematic narrative that weaves back and forth through time and place, the story explores Driver's near existential moral foundations, intercut with moments of bloody violence.

    Casino owner Joe Martin faces down a Syndicate-backed gambler in a marathon craps game, with millions of dollarsand possibly even his lifeat stake.

    figures his luck's about to change when Detroit used-car salesman Frank Ryan catches him trying to boost a ride from Ryan's lot. Frank's got some surefire schemes for getting rich quick--all of them involving guns--and all Stickley has to do is follow "Ryan's Rules" to share the wealth.But sometimes rules need to be bent, maybe even broken to succeed in the world of crime, especially when the "brains" of the operation knows less than nothing.

    When he was a teenager, his family rented a camper for a few weeks during a summer vacation and traveled to Cape Cod. During that brief stay on a quiet stretch of sandy beach, Alan -- whose adolescent life was characterized by "bewilderment and self-loathing" -- stumbled across a young girl trying to get a kite out of a tree. But instead of helping the girl, he sexually assaulted her. When the girl started screaming, he panicked and silenced her with an act of violence. He ran back to his family's camper, and they eventually returned home as if nothing had happened. Now Alan is assailed by guilt: Did he kill the girl or not? He has to know More than a half century after Shubin's crime fiction classic Anyone's My Name (1953), this novel takes a decidedly restrained look at pulp mystery. The brutal sexual crime -- which is the linchpin for the whole story -- is quickly glossed over in a few paragraphs and hardly ever mentioned again. As a result, the story line loses much of its knuckles-to-jawbone intensity, and instead of developing into an adrenaline-fueled whodunit, Witness to Myself becomes more of a psychological study in guilt, paranoia, and, ultimately, redemption -- a rare bullet-free Hard Case Crime release that is as melancholic as it is disturbing. Paul Goat Allen

    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.

    and the woman of his dreams. Things hit a snag when a bookmaking driver Alex flags down suddenly ends up dead. With its tight, crisp writing comparable to James M. Cain and Chandler, the work translated perfectly on screen into the legendary noir "Detour," perhaps the greatest low-budget film ever made.

    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.