But the rhythm of her life is disrupted when attorney Mitchell Reece requests her help in locating a stolen document that could cost him not only the multimillion-dollar case he's defending but his career as well. Eager to get closer to this handsome, brilliant, and very private man, Taylor signs on . . . only to find that as she delves deeper and deeper into what goes on behind closed doors at Hubbard, White & Willis, she uncovers more than she wants to kno--including a plentitude of secrets damaging enough to smash careers and dangerous enough to push someone to commit murder. Yet who is capable of going to that extreme? With her life on the line, Taylor is about to learn the lethal answer. . . ."The characters are well drawn, the plot is fast paced, and the writing avoids totally the usual trappings of blockbusterdom. . . . An intelligently written thriller."--Booklist

    There's no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues. But that's just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still...? No one but Stephen King could tell this story about the darkness at the heart of the unknown and our compulsion to investigate the unexplained. With echoes of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and the work of Graham Greene, one of the world's great storytellers presents a surprising tale that explores the nature of mystery itself...

    His clients are all renegades from the asylum, including a transvestite entertainer with curious medical issues, a buxom deadbeat blonde, a doctor who refers his own patients to a malpractice lawyer, and the driver of a Mardi Gras float shaped like a giant crawfish pot. He also has his hands full with an ex-wife and three teenage daughters, who are experts in the art of wrapping Tubby around their little fingers. And somehow, between work and family, Tubby finds time to sample the highs and lows of idiosyncratic Crescent City cuisine, from trout meuniere amandine and French roast coffee with chicory to shrimp po-boys and homemade pecan pralines. Tubby is asked to take on a new client: Darryl Alvarez, the manager of a local nightclub, who has been caught unloading fifteen bales of marijuana from a shrimp boat. At their first meeting, Darryl entrusts Tubby with an ordinary-looking blue gym bag. But when Darryl is later found shot at the nightclub, Tubby realizes he must tighten his grasp on the gym bag - and its million-dollar contents. Tubby can't just give up the cash. But if he gets caught, he'll be in jail. And if the wrong people catch him, he'll wish he was.

    So how could she have murdered not just one, but two of her husbands?Will Shephard was Maggie's second husband.A magnificent athlete and film star, he was just as famous. But Will had dark, dangerous secrets that none of his fans could have imagined... that his own wife could never dreamed of.

    hotel (no, not that hotel) investigating a twisty tale of burglary and murder, of skullduggery under cover of darkness, of deception and shifting loyalties – and of the price you pay when you trust the wrong people…

    Even more dangerous when she's smarter than the killer, kingpins, and cops who control her. Honors student Sarie Holland is busted by the local police while doing a favor for her boyfriend. Unwilling to betray him but desperate to avoid destroying her future, Sarie has no choice but to become a "CI"--a confidential informant.Philly narcotics cop Ben Wildey is hungry for a career-making bust. The detective thinks he's found the key in Sarie: her boyfriend scores from a mid-level dealer with alleged ties to the major drug gangs.Sarie turns out to be the perfect CI: a quick study with a shockingly keen understanding of the criminal mind. But Wildey, desperate for results, pushes too hard and inadvertently sends the nineteen-year-old into a death trap, leaving Sarie hunted by crooked cops and killers alike with nothing to save her--except what she's learned during her harrowing weeks as an informant.Which is bad news for the police and the underworld. Because when it comes to payback, CI #1373 turns out to be a very quick study...

    The Continental Op was his great first contribution to the genre and these seven stories, which first appeared in the magazine Black Mask, are the best examples of Hammett's early writing, in which his formidable literary and moral imagination is already operating at full strength. The Continental Op is the dispassionate fat man working for the Continental Detective Agency, modelled on the Pinkerton Agency, whose only interest is in doing his job in a world of violence, passion, desperate action and great excitement.The tenth clew.--The golden horseshoe.--The house in Turk Street.--The girl with the silver eyes.--The whosis kid.--The main death.--The farewell murder.

    But he’s a gun monkey, and no one can blame him for having an itchy trigger finger. Ever since he drove down the Florida Turnpike with a headless body in the trunk of a Chrysler, then took down four cops, Charlie’s been running hard through the sprawling sleaze of central Florida. And to make matters worse, he’s holding on to some crooked paperwork that a lot of people would like to take off his hands. Now, with his boss disappeared and his friends dropping like flies, Charlie has got his work cut out just to survive. If he wants to keep the money and get the girl too, he’s really going to have to go ape...Nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, Gun Monkeys is a fast, furious collage of wit and wise guys, violence and thrills—and a full-throttle run through the dark side of the Sunshine State.

    All her neighbors in the declining seaside resort town of Manduwoc want her dead. Some, like her young husband Ralph and his girlfriend Danny, want the thousands of dollars she keeps hidden under the mattress she spends her days resting on. Others want her to stop her malicious gossip--some of which could ruin lives.Told from multiple perspectives, The Kill-Off tells the story of a woman not long for this earth--but who will finally take matters into their own hands, and when? THE KILL-OFF was the basis of Maggie Greenwald's critically acclaimed film of the same name.

    In 'Spiderweb', Eddie Haines is collecting secrets from his wealthy clients in order to blackmail them.

    Notoriously cunning and ruthless, Gloria shows her eager young protégée the ropes, ushering her into a glittering demimonde of late-night casinos, racetracks, betting parlors, inside heists, and big, big money. Suddenly, the world is at her feet--as long as she doesn't take any chances, like falling for the wrong guy. As the roulette wheel turns, both mentor and protégée scramble to stay one step ahead of their bosses and each other.

    With his guard down, he doesn’t think twice when he hears a knock on the door. The next day, he finds himself in the hospital, badly bruised and with his jaw wired shut. He thinks back over ten years of cases wondering who would want to beat him into unconsciousness, steal his gun and badge, and most importantly, make off with his prized dentures. But the pieces never quite add up to revenge, and the few clues he has keep connecting to a dimwitted hooker, and her ex-con boyfriend and the bizarre murder of a Hare Krishna pimp.Chronically depressed, constantly strapped for money, always willing to bend the rules a bit, Hoke Moseley is hardly what you think of as the perfect cop, but he is one of the the greatest detective creations of all time.

    But while the thieves get caught, the art is never found. Forty years later, the last surviving thief gets out of jail and goes hunting for the loot, involving some innocent college students in his dangerous plan - and thirty years after that, in the present day, the former college kids, now all grown up, are drawn back into danger as the still-missing art tempts a deadly new generation of treasure hunters. A breathtakingly clever, twist-filled narrative that moves from 1946 to 1988 to 2014 and back again, CHARLESGATE CONFIDENTIAL establishes Scott Von Doviak as a storyteller of the first order, and will leave you guessing until the very last page.

    Archy McNally is a freewheeling playboy who specializes in "Discreet Inquiries" for the rich and not-so-discreet. Beneath the glaring sun of Palm Beach - and behind the lowest crimes of high society - he is paid to keep family skeletons in the closet. But when it comes to sex and scandal, he has a few secrets of his own.

    Now she's decided that the only way to exorcise the ghosts of the past is to search for the truth. Beryl starts asking dangerous questions, and the answers are proving that old secrets die hard. Caught in what's become a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, her quest takes her from the rain-slick streets of Paris to the sun-drenched isles of Greece. And as she gets pulled into a world of espionage, Beryl quickly discovers that she needs help. Richard Wolf, an ex-CIA agent and a man she's only just met, is her only hope. But in a world where trust is a double-edged sword, friends become enemies, and enemies become killers . . .