Book picks similar to
Liz / Syndicate Girl by Frank Kane


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Double Wide


Leo W. Banks - 2017
    There are also keen and comical observations on life, a roadrunner pace, and a hardy but humane protagonist.

Case of the Vanishing Beauty


Richard S. Prather - 1950
    Another dead in a hail of bullets. Would the lovely Lina be next? Even here in the drizzly rain outside the El Cuchillo, she was hotter than a welder's torch. Here's your chance to meet Shell Scott, the sharpest Private Eye you've ever known - the darling of all dames, the envy of all guys.

The Imaginary Blonde


Ross Macdonald - 1953
    He had just lost the man he was trailing and then got into a crazy highway chase with a Cadillac. Now he just wanted to get some sleep. But his thoughts of sleep ended when a screaming brunette woke him with her screams and a hand covered in blood. It looked like a murder, but where was the victim? And Lew Archer only had one suspect―an imaginary blonde that nobody seems to have seen.

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!

Beautiful, Naked & Dead


Josh Stallings - 2010
    Just like one of the hardasses in his own books. The man knows what to do with paper and ink. Read the damn thing." -Charlie Huston "Someone once said of Raymond Chandler that he wrote 'as if pain hurt and life mattered.' That's true of Josh Stallings, too. Hop on, kick the starter, and let him lead you on a long, painful, but entertaining ride through Moses McGuire's world. One hint: wear your helmet and your leathers. It might get messy." -Tad Williams BEAUTIFUL, NAKED AND DEAD is hard-boiled crime novel. Moses McGuire a suicidal strip club bouncer is out to avenge the death of one of his girls. From his East L.A. home, through the legal brothels of Nevada and finally to a battle with the mob in the mountains above Palo Alto, it is a sex soaked, rage driven, road trip from hell.

Shoot the Moonlight Out


William Boyle - 2021
     Southern Brooklyn, July 1996. Fire hydrants are open and spraying water on the sizzling blacktop. Punk kids have to make their own fun. Bobby Santovasco and his pal Zeke like to throw rocks at cars getting off the Belt Parkway. They think it’s dumb and harmless until it’s too late to think otherwise. Then there’s Jack Cornacchia, a widower who lives with his high school age daughter Amelia and reads meters for Con Ed but also has a secret life as a vigilante, righting neighborhood wrongs through acts of violence. A simple mission to strong-arm a Bay Ridge con man, Max Berry, leads him to cross paths with a tragedy that hits close to home.     Fast forward five years: June 2001. The summer before New York City and the world changed for good. Charlie French is a low-level gangster-wannabe trying to make a name for himself. When he stumbles onto a bowling alley locker stuffed with a bag full of cash, he brings it to his only pal, Max Berry, for safekeeping while he cleans up the mess surrounding it. Bobby Santovasco—with no real future mapped out and the big sin of his past shining brightly in his rearview mirror—has taken a job working as an errand boy for Max Berry. On a recruiting run for Max’s Ponzi scheme, Bobby meets Francesca Clarke, born in the neighborhood but an outsider nonetheless. They hit it off. Bobby gets the idea to knock off Max’s safe so he and Francesca can escape Brooklyn forever. Little does he know what Charlie French has stashed there. Meanwhile, Bobby’s former stepsister, Lily Murphy, is back home in the neighborhood after college, teaching a writing class in the basement of St. Mary's church. She's also being stalked by her college boyfriend. One of her students is Jack Cornacchia. When she opens up to him about her stalker, Jack decides to take matters into his own hands. A riveting portrait of lives crashing together at the turn of the century, Shoot the Moonlight Out is tragic and tender and funny and strange. A sense of loss is palpable—what has been lost and what will be lost—and Boyle’s characters face down old ghosts with grim determination, as ripples of consequence radiate in dangerous directions.

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...

Getting Off


Jill Emerson - 2011
    She goes to bed with him, and she likes that part. Then she kills him, and she likes that even better. On her way out, she cleans out his wallet. She keeps moving, and has a new name for each change of address. She's been doing this for a while, and she's good at it.And then a chance remark gets her thinking of the men who got away, the lucky ones who survived a night with her. She starts writing down names. And now she's a girl with a mission. Picking up their trails. Hunting them down. Crossing them off her list...

Killing Castro


Lee Duncan - 1961
    Five Americans a bounty hunter, a murderer on the run, a vengeful college kid, a professional thug, and a bank clerk dying of cancerwill split $100,000 if they can sneak into Cuba and assassinate Fidel Castro.

New Yorked


Rob Hart - 2015
    Find someone, scare someone, carry something; point him at the job, he gets it done. He generally accepts money upon completion, though a bottle of whiskey works, too--he's comfortable working on a barter system. It's not the career he dreamed about (archeologist) but it keeps him comfortable in his ever-changing East Village neighborhood.That's until Chell, the woman he loves, leaves him a voicemail looking for help--a voicemail he gets two hours after her body is found. Ash hunts for her killer with the grace of a wrecking ball, running afoul of a drag queen crime lord and stumbling into a hard-boiled role playing game that might be connected to a hipster turf war.Along the way, he's forced to face the memories of his tumultuous relationship with Chell, his unresolved anger over his father’s death, and the consequences of his own violent tendencies.New Yorked takes you deep into the seedy underbelly of New York with an unforgettable literary voice steeped in the noir tradition of Lawrence Block's iconic Matthew Scudder. New Yorked is an unforgettable debut novel that stays with you like a glass of the best whiskey.

Wee Rockets


Gerard Brennan - 2011
    A gang of fourteen-year-old hoods rampage through West Belfast, indulging in violent street crime and mugging pensioners to pay for cider, cigarettes and sweets. Branded scum by a shocked community and pursued by a dogged local vigilante, the young gangsters’ antisocial behaviour soon escalates into something much worse.

Brainquake


Samuel Fuller - 2014
    But that ended the day he saw a beautiful Mob wife become a Mob widow. Now Paul is going to break every one of the rules he’s lived by to protect the woman he loves—even if it means he might be left holding the bag..."Personal, hard-hitting, idiosyncratic...Everything was about storytelling, the great yarn."— Quentin Tarantino"One of the great movie directors of the 20th century...most certainly its greatest storyteller."— Wim Wenders In a career that spanned half a century, Samuel Fuller wrote and directed classic movies that inspired filmmakers as varied as Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, and Quentin Tarantino. He also wrote unforgettable novels such as the noir classic THE DARK PAGE—and this book, his last, which has never previously been published in the English language.

Detroit Noir


E.J. Olsen - 2007
    Estleman, Craig Holden, P.J. Parrish, Desiree Cooper, Nisi Shawl, M.L. Liebler, Craig Bernier, Joe Boland, Megan Abbott, Dorene O’Brien, Lolita Hernandez, Peter Markus, Roger K. Johnson, Michael Zadoorian, and E.J. Olsen.

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.

Honey in His Mouth


Lester Dent - 2009
    Original.