That’s what the Mexican kidnapping cartel was demanding for Carl Ledbetter’s wife. So Carl reached out to the one person he knew with a chance in hell of saving her, a deadly man whose own life he’d saved in the sands of Iraq. It was time to call in some favors. Because some situations call for negotiation, but some… call for gun work.

    Soon he's forced to flee the country with both the police and the heiress on his trail. Original.

    Stalked by a vicious killer and losing his hold on power, Mallorys old boss needs helpthe kind of help only a man like Mallory can provide. But behind the walls of the fenced-in island compound he once called home, Mallory is about to find himself surrounded by beautiful women, by temptation, and by dangerand one wrong step could trigger a bloodbath

    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...

    Original.

    But this time, that's just what happened: The show stopped dead, and so did the girl. And as I looked at her nearly naked and completely lifeless body and the bottle of poison in her hand with my fingerprints all over it, I thought to myself: Porkpie, you're in for it this time…

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

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

    Until the day a shadowy rival known only as The Trader has her abducted and scarred for life as a warning to stay out of his way.Now Cay’s on her way to Mazatlan, where one of The Trader’s men has been spotted. There’s a big deal going down – but she’s not there to make a score. Just to settle one.

    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.

    They were never seen again. The father of one of the boys has hired New York private eye Joe Dunne to find the men responsible and kill them.

    The Dutch uncle in the book is an actual Dutchman whose cocaine and untimely demise set a small swarm of crooks and cops in motion. Harry Healy is the sort-of hero, a likable, small-time criminal, just out of jail, who has a hard time making good decisions. But he's just one player in a memorably quirky cast that includes a dim ex-jock snorting his way through his inheritance; a ditzy babe whose constant nakedness is annoying everyone; a short, chunky detective who struggles with his sensitivity training; and the braces-wearing Latina colleague he might just be made for. Pavia, coauthor of The Other Hollywood, an "oral history" of the porn industry, redraws the hard-boiled boundaries of the Hard Case Crime line a bit to include this offbeat diversion in the style of Leonard, Carl Hiaasen, and Charles Willeford's Hoke Moseley books

    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.

    Michael Tree sees a conspiracy. For Ms. Tree digging into it could mean digging her own grave - and digging up her own murdered husband's.

    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...