Books in Order: Murder Room by Vera Caspary

A beautiful woman - with no memory - and the people who claim to know her may not have her best interests at heart... 'Vera Caspary is an expert at suspense and suspicion' New York Times Kate and Allan Royce are driving home from a party in Westport, Connecticut one… Read More

A beautiful Cornish coastal village is the setting for a highly sinister conspiracy involving a kidnapped baby, mysterious monks and an almost irresistible new perfume... 'Joan Aiken's triumph with this genre is that she does it so much better than others' New York Times Book Review Martha works for an… Read More

'A literary celebrity with few rivals ... she wrote more bestselling novels ... over a longer period than almost any other American writer' WASHINGTON POST Everyone agrees that Herbert Wynne wasn't the type to commit suicide. But he has been found, shot dead, the only other possible killer his bedridden… Read More

The first novel in the acclaimed VAN DER VALK series - now a major new ITV series starring Marc Warren 'Masterful' SUNDAY TIMES 'Freeling's Inspector Van der Valk is less rugged than Rebus, less parsonical than Dalgliesh, more Morse than Frost, and more Maigret than any of them. Marvellous' -… Read More

A small village is the scene of two brutal murders - and everyone is under suspicion. A classic of crime fiction The village of Pennycross is the scene of two brutal child murders within a few months. The villagers' lives are monitored by a team of police, led by Chief… Read More

Agnes receives few compliments, and Henry Preble is not so bad-looking even if he does have a reputation for cornering girls at work. In the eyes of the world, knowing that you're on the shelf at twenty-four can do strange things to a girl. So strange that you might wake… Read More

A baker's dozen of stories from the Golden Age master of the police procedural: seven from the casebook of Detective Inspector John Poole, whose brilliant work in the The Duke of York's Steps and No Friendly Drop will be remembered by readers of Wade novels; and six miscellaneous narratives of… Read More

Hector Berrenton returns home from hospital after a serious car accident to find a terse note: San Podino. This is yours. Fallon next. Suspecting Berrenton's car has been tampered with, the North Sussex Police call in Scotland Yard. Chief Inspector John Poole, put in charge of the investigation, quickly discovers… Read More

Colonel Jerrod has just six months to live, but he needs a year if he is to save Brackton, the family estate, from crippling death duties. Then his ambitious son, Grant, has an idea, one that involves Colonel Jerrod's carefree brother, Philip, and which develops into a complicated fraud that,… Read More

Detective Constable Henry Campion turns lone avenger when his childhood friend and colleague DC Fred Jordan is shot dead by a gangster who is spared the death sentence. And Campion is convinced there were two killers. To try to catch the second, Campion goes undercover as a spiv in a… Read More

Aylwin Hundrych is a diplomat with political aspirations, who was once involved with a French girl, Antoinette, with whom he unwittingly shared details about a royal visit to Paris - details which put the King's life in danger. Antoinette's brother holds the former lovers' letters, and is threatening to use… Read More

At a meeting of Quenborough Borough Council, the Mayor, Sir John Assington, is accused by Alderman Trant of wasting money and turning a blind eye to speculators on the make. Then Trant is stabbed with his own knife, and while dying, manages to scratch the initials 'MA' on a piece… Read More

Geoffrey Hastings is doing very well for himself: having survived the Great War, he is not only working for wealthy financier Sir John Smethurst but is engaged to his daughter, Emily. Hastings has a rival for Emily's affections in the form of Samuel McCorquodale, a successful businessman and both friend… Read More

At first it seems that Lord Henry Grayle has taken an overdose of sleeping medicine, but the autopsy reveals a tiny amount of scopolamine along with the draught - harmless in itself, but fatal when mixed . . . A poisoner with apparently expert knowledge is at work in the… Read More

Cousins James and Charles Morden run a shipping company in Liverpool that is, in the wake of the Great War, struggling. It appears there have been financial irregularities, and then James Morden's body is washed up on a bank of the Mersey. Evidence points to Charles Morden, after burning a… Read More

PC John Bragg is young and full of ambition, and with his eye on making Superintendent one day, he squares up to each case that comes his way as an opportunity to show himself brave, reliable and a good detective. In town and country, at scenes of murder, robbery, fraud,… Read More

Great Norne is a small harbour town in East Anglia that once flourished with trade. Now the quiet community is being terrorised by a series of murders: the vicar, Reverend Torridge is found dead on the quayside; then Colonel Cherrington is shot in his study. A third death follows. The… Read More

Two men in Hadestone Prison are approaching the end of their sentences for burglary and assault. James Carson is well educated but brutal; Toddy Shaw is a cheerful cockney who considers burglary a sport. Trouble flares in the chapel, and both Shaw and Carson are involved. Eventually both men are… Read More

The night watchman at Hallams, the long-established Bond Street jewellers, is found dead with his head battered in, and a number of display cases have been rifled. Chief Inspector Burr picks up the trail, with the young Inspector Poole as his assistant. But before long, the crime at Hallams is… Read More

Contains four novellas: Stranger in the House; Sugar and Spice; The Murder in the Stork Club; Ruth. In these deftly woven noir novellas, Vera Caspary draws on her own rich, independent life as a woman at a time of great social change, including her own experience of Manhattan's Stork Club,… Read More

'Vera Caspary and others were the forerunners of Gillian Flynn, Megan Abbott, Laura Lippmann and of course, Paula Hawkins' Irish Times Renowned painter Henry Leveret is found shot dead in his downtown studio, and his estranged son, Michael, returns to his family and his father's circle of friends in order… Read More

Leni Neumann is rebuilding her life as a Jewish survivor in post-war Vienna, having lost her mother in a Nazi prison. As a singer going from café to café, she meets all kinds of people: good people, who want to leave the horrors of war behind; neurotics, who hope to… Read More

It's 1920s Chicago, and Louise and Evvie, who have known each other since school, share an apartment. Worldly Evvie, a painter and dancer - supposedly married at seventeen and then divorced - is living on her alimony. Louise is a successful advertising copywriter and in love with her boss. Flouting… Read More

Stuart Howell is a promoter with a million-dollar proposition on the line. Jean McVeigh is young, wealthy and lonely. Very lonely. With Jean's self-loathing making her prone to suicide attempts, Stuart sees a neat way to make a lot of money. After a whirlwind courtship, they marry, and Jean is… Read More

It was the party of a lifetime - but she never arrived... 'Vera Caspary is an expert at suspense and suspicion' New York Times When popular young schoolteacher Nina Redfield reports to police the whereabouts of Bushie Neal, a criminal on the run, she sets off a chain of events… Read More

Out in the Rolls-Royce, Emmy Arkwright nearly collides with Nat Volck in Beverly Hills. Emmy and Nat are neighbours, yet belong to separate worlds: she is a wealthy, successful fashion designer; he is a doctor who trained during World War Two. But when Nat gets a call one night telling… Read More

John Ansell, the new editor of Truth and Crime magazine, takes his appointment, and the title of the magazine, at face value. Until his boss, President of Barclay-Truth Inc., Noble Barclay, rejects his 'Unsolved Mystery of the Month' article, an investigation into the death of Warren G. Wilson, household name… Read More

Harborough is a large seaside town on the north-east coast of England, whose local paper, the Harborough Post, mounts a campaign against the city's funfairs. Soon the proprietor of the newspaper, Herbert Litmore, gets two anonymous threatening letters, which he takes to the Chief Constable. Then Litmore's ten-year-old son, Ben,… Read More

Charles Rathlyn has everything - a benefactress, a rich wife and a comfortable country life. But while riding to hounds one day he takes a terrible spill, and, on reviving, finds himself looking into a pair of beautiful brown eyes. He knows he has fallen once again . . .… Read More

Sir Herbert Sterron is found dead, hanging by the neck from a curtain cord. He had good reason to want to kill himself, so nobody is unduly surprised. But then hints of foul play start to emerge: Sterron's wife, Griselda, was desperately unhappy with the marriage; and shocking evidence is… Read More

Secret agent Tiger Mann has his wedding interrupted by a call to look into the defection of a top Russian spy, Gabin Martrel, who has requested asylum in the US but won't provide any information. Tiger figures that he has defected to find an old flame, an Olympic skier named… Read More

The killing of Lippy Sullivan is only a one-column squib in the morning papers. Lippy was a loser, a pickpocket, and his one claim to fame was an acquaintanceship with Mike Hammer. Was that reason enough for someone to gag, torture and kill him? By the time Mike figures out… Read More

A colourful banquet at the Château Perdrix is noisily interrupted by Bishop Arkwright, an American trying to spread the cause of temperance in Europe. Inspector Gautier intervenes and has the bishop expelled. Later that night Michael O'Flynn, the Grand Officier of the Chevaliers, is murdered in the hotel where both… Read More

With the Entente Cordiale still in its infancy, the Sûreté had assigned Inspector Gautier to keep a protective eye on English visitors to Paris for the racing at Longchamps. But it was not the English who engaged Gautier's attention, but an Irish surgeon - Michael Breen. Breen, fêted by the… Read More

After his father dies of a heart attack, Ian Blackie finds an old box full of a bizarre assortment of papers in the attic of his parents' home. Hidden amongst the papers are some mysterious personal mementos belonging to General Alexander Ballantine, his father's old school friend, recently killed by… Read More

When both his holiday plans and love affair collapse, London doctor Charles Mackinnon agrees to act as locum in Skye, looking forward to a peaceful stay. However, within hours of his arrival he witnesses someone being thrown off a distant cliff into the sea. When the body of Jamie Gillespie… Read More

A skilfully planned murder in Portugal; a clever con-game in Texas; a body washed up on the Galloway coast. What have these far-flung events in common? In a word: whisky. And not any kind of whisky, but a fine malt. Bruce Sanderson is on a ten-day holiday in the Highlands… Read More

The small Hebridean island of Alsaig is facing a crisis. It is famous for its only export, a particularly fine malt whisky, upon which most of the islanders depend for their livelihood. But the distillery is threatened with a takeover by an American firm, which would not only make many… Read More

When journalist Ronnie Bart visits a Rome clinic, where one of his colleagues lies drugged, he becomes involved in a series of adventures in which fear and death are never far away. In a Copenhagen nightclub, Bart meets a young millionaire, Paul Arved, and goes with him and his 'flying… Read More

Arriving home one night, Ronnie Bart, an English journalist, finds a woman in his apartment. She is wearing only his dressing gown and eating the remains of his breakfast. Her stay is brief, for she is soon arrested by the police, accused of murdering a young man. Trying to prove… Read More

Disillusioned with life in the South of France, Hurford accepts an assignment for British Intelligence. He is told that, under the cover of a teaching post in Moscow, he will simply be expected to relay information back to Britain from a highly prized source. Once in Moscow, however, Hurford finds… Read More

Unexpectedly sent to Moscow to manage his firm's stand at a world fair, Cristopher Battle feels that he may not be up to the job. Then his chairman is murdered and, after the discovery of a second body, Battle is convinced that the Russian Security Police are trying to kill… Read More

When a young chambermaid is found dead, bitten by a cobra concealed in the bed of notorious libertine Armand de Périgord, Inspector Jean-Paul Gautier is certain that she was not the intended victim. The charismatic de Périgord is very wealthy and has never married, and some very salacious stories circulate… Read More

The house in Chelsea was smart, in an unpretentious way. But when detective John Bryant rang the front door bell, he found neither intellect nor artistry; what lay before him was a world of curious contrasts - of extravagance and squalor, luxury and murder. Bryant follows his lads from a… Read More

Tiger Mann, sleuth and expert in counter-espionage, is lunching with a friend when he notices a girl enter the restaurant. To his friend, the girl is Edith Caine, a UN translator. But Tiger knows her as Rondine Lund, an Austrian who was a Nazi spy during the war. He had… Read More

Lyncastle is a small town that likes to be dirty: gin joints, gambling dens and brothels make sure of that, and bring in more money than the State Capitol. One night, a man named Johnny McBride returns to the town, and nobody is happy about it. Supposedly he ran away… Read More

A short story by Guy Cullingford 'See my finger's wet See my finger's dry Slit my throat if I tell a lie . . . 'When a young girl approaches a man reading by a tree, warning him of a murder, he rushes to help. However, upon the disappearance of… Read More

When Bertha Harris's husband dies she draws comfort from routine and expects the rest of her life to drift by in the same quiet, uneventful way. But she hasn't reckoned on her nephews and niece, who are quick on the uptake that Bertha is that most desirable of relatives: a… Read More

A Victorian family is left high and dry when its lord and master sails off to China to bring back the first tea of the season. Absent for six months at a time, he never ceases to dominate the lives of his wife and children. The yearly race to be… Read More

Laura Chance, wife of Borford's prospective Lord Mayor, becomes infatuated with her young hairdresser, Pierre, who resembles her dead son. Pierre is utterly selfish, unscrupulous and sees in the wealthy, middle-aged woman a dupe who can give him some of the material possessions he covets. Despite her innate intelligence, Laura… Read More

Joyce Cave had her husband, Robert, exactly where she wanted him - in a private gaol with herself, her aunt and her uncle as warders. He had been charged with killing the local good-time girl, who had tried the oldest trick in the world on the panicky Robert and ended… Read More

When Dorothy Squirl's speech for the opening of the Fallowfield Fête blew out of her hands, she found herself under the heady influence of an overdose of pep pills, calling on all women to unite to put the world to rights. The husbands didn't like it, but once the press,… Read More

Archie Wayne, successful playwright, could not say what impulse had made him return to the small town of his boyhood. On impulse, he called on his boyhood friend, and the matter would have ended there had he not met and fallen for his friend's daughter, the young and innocent Christine.… Read More

As Miss Maggs made her way nervously home, a clock stuck one, the town's lights were switched off and footsteps sounded behind her. She broke into a desperate run. Later the doctor pronounced that she had literally died of fright. In a provincial town, who was there to suspect but… Read More

The quiet town of Cattminster is shocked by news of a startling murder - startling because all the evidence points to the murderer being Richard Groom, grandson of the late canon of Cattminster Cathedral and ex-fiancé of the victim's wife. Richard, however, has five stout allies who believe unquestionably in… Read More

In the cheerful, grubby backstreets of Soho, Jessie Milk finds herself a most unsuitable occupation as a receptionist in a hotel frequented by unsuccessful variety artists. Among the hotel's regulars is a dyspeptic conjurer with a plain wife and pretty assistant, both of whom drive him to distraction and encourage… Read More

Who killed Gilbert Worth? The official verdict was suicide, but those that knew him best thought he was not the type to take his own life. Furthermore, before his death, a missing gun, a half-written letter and two 'accidents' had convinced Worth that someone was trying to kill him. Worth's… Read More

George White, an inoffensive little chemist in East Anglia, finds himself the possessor of a somewhat unusual accomplishment - he only has to wish someone dead and his wish is granted. The first inkling of his abilities comes when Major James, a petty tyrant who made George the butt of… Read More

Mrs Bonnet was renowned for the delicacies she concocted in her semi-basement kitchen, but never did she imagine she would serve up murder to her beloved mistress! But when Mrs Bonnet, who has the lightest touch with pastry, tries her hand at the science of detection, she does so with… Read More

Deep was back in town after a twenty-five-year exile - to inherit an empire and avenge a death. He and Bennett had made the inheritance pact when they were kids; they had known that even New York was too small for them to share and so they had tossed a… Read More

A fast-moving, intricate and compelling contemporary mystery, starting with the brutal murder of a prostitute in London's West End, and uncovering a politician with feet of clay, a bent ex-policeman and a baggage handling scam at Heathrow airport. Brock and Poole might seem mismatched in age and temperament, but their… Read More

Introducing the pipe-smoking DI Ernest Hardcastle, bluff straight-talker, canny investigator and no respecter of privilege.1916. In a London shocked by reports of the first days of the Somme, a woman is found murdered in Shoreditch. At first it's thought she was a common streetwalker, but then she's identified as someone… Read More

The exciting original of the Hitchcock film classic. Iris Carr was young, wealthy, attractive - and bored. Despairing of her society friends, tired of skiing with the crowd, she decides to return to England alone by train. But she hadn't bargained for the extraordinary Miss Froy - a lively, gossipy… Read More

Helen Capel takes the position of lady-help in a remote country house owned by the Warren family and, before long, learns that a murderer is on the loose. All four of his victims were young girls, and the last of these was strangled in a lonely house just five miles… Read More

Contains the two novellas Border Town Girl and Linda. Border Town Girl Once, Lane Sanson had been a Somebody - war correspondent and a bestselling author. Now he was a Nobody, bumming around Mexico. Lost, lonely, hungry for hope, he was a pushover for a border town B-girl - the… Read More

Joe Gores collects here fourteen stories spanning the five decades of his varied writing career. In the title story, two bright young scientists set out to prove there is no good-dispensing God by demonstrating that there is no evil-dispensing Satan - with unforeseen results. Sneaking onto an anti-terrorism course for… Read More

Honolulu: Port of Call is a unique collection of short stories of the Hawaiian islands brought together by Joe Gores: thirteen tales by legendary writers including Jack London, Herman Melville, W. Somerset Maugham, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad and Joe Gores himself. Yet these are tales chosen to entertain, rather… Read More

Brendan Thorne, ex-army Ranger and master CIA sniper, has turned his back on violence. But while working as a game warden at a Kenya safari park, an FBI team appear from nowhere, kidnap him and fly him back to the US to meet the newly elected President. President Wallberg is… Read More

It's 1953, and Pierce Duncan leaves college an innocent. Seeking the freedom of the road, Dunc sets off to see America. His road trip brings strange, fateful encounters: with a savage Georgia chain gang; with a killer on a lonely Texas road; and with the darker side of the Las… Read More

Every morning, Miss Loveapple blesses her good fortune. She has property, a devoted maid and is young and beautiful. An independent woman, she has a mind never to marry. But a darker mind - one Clarence Club's - has a plan that will leave her accused of murder. About to… Read More

Behind the ominous walls of Jamaica Court, Anthea Vine rules as a provincial Queen Elizabeth, imperious and wealthy, vain and pathetic. But Anthea holds chained to her in financial dependence five discontented souls, all with a motive for murder. Her tentacles reach beyond her three wards and draw into their… Read More

US Federal agent John Dennison arrives in the UK to meet Chief Inspector Philip Hunter of Scotland Yard, and to find $300,000, smuggled ashore via Liverpool. According to Dennison, the smugglers are intent on buying diamonds, to ship back to the US. Two suspects are followed to a London hotel… Read More

Everyone thought Mike Hammer was dead, shot in a drugs war battle on the docks of New York. But now he's back from a stay in Florida, and in deeper trouble than ever before. He has the slaying of Marcus Dooley, an old army buddy, to pay back with interest… Read More

One of them is the link to Davidian. One of them is holding out . . . Steve Wintress's flight to Los Angeles is forced down in bad weather, and he shares a car into town with three fellow travellers: a shy young soldier, a cool Hollywood actress and a… Read More

Jose Aragon is a ranch hand between jobs. Looking and smelling just like a piece of border-town trash, he's hoping the Chenoweth Hotel, El Paso, will let him in for a much-needed shower, a room and a couple of cold beers. But a beautiful and wealthy woman with golden-brown hair,… Read More

It's carnival time in Santa Fe, and three out-of-town visitors are drawn together in the heat, the smells and the colour of the festival . . Sailor, a hood from Chicago, is there to confront his boss, Sen, a crooked politician, to try to get money for what he knows… Read More

One-way ticket to death . . .? 'Hughes is the master we keep turning to' Sara Paretsky 'The tension and terror of Dread Journey are such that few will be able to lay the book down unfinished' New York Times 'Cornell Woolrich meets Agatha Christie' Publishers Weekly 'Superbly done' Washington… Read More

Private First Class Johnnie Brown is on a break in New York, with just two days to spend however he likes before shipping out to fight the Nazis. All he wants to do is ride the subway, and while his fellow soldiers are exploring the Statue of Liberty, the Empire… Read More

Diplomatic corps man Piers Hunt watches the glittering lights of Broadway from his Hotel Astor room. The German girl's mocking voice returns to his mind yet again: 'More melodrama, Piers?' Yes: this time it's 'more melodrama', but with a vengeance. In New York incognito, only Piers knows that his superior,… Read More

Who killed Louie Lepetino? Was it Barby, with her silvery sheen of hair, looking like a top model and acting like a woman madly in love? Or the beautiful Toni, who is hiding some strange secrets? Could it be Otto, a handsome refugee, nicknamed Blue Eyes and an object of… Read More

Griselda and Con Satterlee are spending a second honeymoon in a cottage on Long Beach, and it's not going well. To cap it all, Con picks up a blonde in the Bamboo Bar one night and walks out with her, leaving Griselda on her own. Con comes back, saying that… Read More

Alone in New York City, Lizanne Steffasson comes face to face with reality when her dream of acting on Broadway collapses. Now she just needs to pay her rent. So she answers an unusual ad in the paper, for 'a beautiful girl. One not afraid to look on danger's bright… Read More

Superb Art Deco suspense set in the glamorous world of high society New York from 'An author with a flair for terror' The New Yorker 'If you wake up in the night screaming with terror, don't say we didn't warn you' New York Times Once the dashing, top-hatted twins, Danny… Read More

Gill Burke is the toughest cop in New York, and he gets results. That is, until the mob decide he's too dangerous and pull strings, seeing him dishonourably removed from the force. But Gill is still the only cop who knows how the mob operate, and when their top people… Read More

Dogeron Kelly, a walking bomb of a man, suddenly appears in elegant - and not so elegant - New York circles with a suitcase containing a quarter of a million dollars. There are rumours, but no one is certain where he, or the money, came from. It seems he is… Read More

Morgan the Raider got his name from the famous pirate of old, as he stands convicted of stealing $40 million. He is good at getting himself out of jail, too; he has already escaped custody once. Now he is offered the chance of a reduced sentence - but at risk… Read More

From the moment he walks into his Manhattan office to find his beloved secretary Velda knocked unconscious, and a brutally murdered stranger occupying his office chair, PI Mike Hammer is on the warpath. He's 'in a blind fury ready to blow somebody into a death full of bloody flying parts'.… Read More

Oldtown is a picturesque, historic place, with a square of characterful houses nestling at its centre, and is home to retired colonial masters and friendly locals. A wealthy, reclusive sisterhood lives there too, in a large mansion, Cloisters; a group known locally as the 'Black Nuns', who are said to… Read More

The roar of a lion is not the kind of music one expects to hear at night in the stillness of the English countryside. Yet in the neighbourhood of 'Ganges', Sir Benjamin Watson's house, that terrifyingly wild sound is not uncommon. Sir Benjamin is rich enough to indulge his expensive… Read More

No. 11 India Crescent is officially a dead address. Its absentee owner, General Tygarth, and his wife are reported to be living abroad, but it is so long since they have been seen in the town that few remember them. Only one or two people recall its tragic story of… Read More

At four o'clock on a misty October afternoon in London, Evelyn Cross, blonde, nineteen and fashionably dressed, vanishes into thin air. Evelyn is the daughter of wealthy Raphael Cross. She has been seen going into the flat of Madame Goya, a fortune teller in Mayfair, but in response to Mr… Read More

On what trivialities the big things in life hang. From the moment when, dining alone in her Brussels hotel, Georgia Yeo, celebrated writer of detective thrillers, opens her cigarette case and the Count comes into her life with the polite offer of a light, she realises that here is fate.… Read More

Anna, a young Englishwoman, is drawn to visit Russia partly out of interest, to see for herself the 'proletarian experiment', and partly by Otto, a glamorous but faithless newspaper editor. With nothing left now to keep her in Russia, she prepares to leave and return to England. But she has… Read More

Caroline Watts has accepted a post as games mistress at the prestigious Abbey School in the west of England. She is delighted with the appointment: it's an excellent private girls' school. No matter that she was introduced to the post through a tenuous network of family contacts. And that the… Read More

Reporter Sonia Thompson discovers threads linking prominent members of Riverpool society with the chamber of horrors in a neglected waxworks museum. Married Lilith Nile is using it as a place to meet Sir Julian. Schoolteacher Miss Monroe is obsessed with the moth-eaten figure of Mary of England. And why does… Read More

Charlie Baxter has never been a success. Yes, he's popular with women, but he's not exactly a party guy. A cheerful loser, that's Charlie. He has even made a hash of his 'death'. For, having almost exhausted a legacy left to him by a rich aunt, he has planned to… Read More

In a lovely English village of flowers, Tudor cottages and cobbled streets, Joan Brook works as companion to Lady d'Arcy, living in at the huge mansion with its surrounding park. And the village is not too small for Joan to have found a man whom she can love. Suddenly the… Read More

It began with the murder of a beautiful woman, the adulterous wife of a mild-mannered professor. Then a corrupt cop was gunned down in a phone booth. After that, the killer who called himself Raptor moved through a list of players, playboys and mobsters from Palm Springs to Minnesota. With… Read More

Once Eddie Dain had a life: a beautiful wife, a happy young son and a thriving business catching soft-core bad guys by computer. Then he hung onto an odd-looking case and made a mysterious enemy - one whose calling cards were two men with shotguns. Now Eddie is reborn -… Read More

Hollis Fletcher has no idea why someone has tried to kill him. Fletcher is a professional hunter with years of tracking experience, and he's going to find the man who left him for dead in the frozen Minnesota woods, and take vengeance. Soon he discovers he is after big game:… Read More

After eight hard years in San Quentin prison, Runyan is out and ready to lead a quiet life - an honest life. But certain people have been planning for the day of his release - people who desperately want the two million dollars in diamonds Runyan was carrying just before… Read More

The gang was restless, just looking for idle fun. They roughed up a man they thought was gay - but their game got out of hand and their victim was blinded. It was Paula Halstead's bad luck to witness the attack and catch a glimpse of one of the boys.… Read More

A respectable citizen trips on a store escalator. On cue, Cadillacs start disappearing from lots all over San Francisco, as a team of scam artists use pure criminal genius to do one California bank out of $1.3 million of Detroit's finest. The bank hires Daniel Kearny Associates to get the… Read More

A young girl has been murdered. Then another. Both blonde. A serial killer at work - or a copycat? 'Maurice Procter is a born storyteller' Sunday Times Inspector Martineau has a nasty murder to solve: that of a blonde girl, aged just twelve. Martineau knows that child murder can be… Read More

Janey Elliott fails to return home one evening from a friend's, and her husband John goes out looking for her car. He and the friend's husband find Janey, brutally murdered. The gruesome killing of beautiful but wayward Janey Elliott calls for the special services of the Metropolitan Police. Does the… Read More

It looks like a trivial enough incident: a would-be petty thief makes his escape before he has stolen anything. But when the beat constable arrives to look for damage, he finds something he hasn't been expecting - a dead man, with a wound in his back made by a broad… Read More

Lou Fingerhut's boxing career is finished, but a golden opportunity drops into his lap, one that could see him right for life. Soon he and his old ring mates, Goldie and China, are caught up in an ever-expanding net of crime and violence, chalking up a score of four murders… Read More

'A star in our galaxy of crime writers' FINANCIAL TIMES Superb crime fiction from the CWA Diamond Dagger Award Winner 'Yorke practised deception artfully and with style' GUARDIAN 'Mistress of the skilfully spun suspense novel' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH Nesta Falconer, an attractive widow, lives with her fifteen-year-old daughter Philippa, managing brother-in-law… Read More

A bank holiday - memorable for murder... 'Few authors are better than Margaret Yorke in generating a real sense of fear' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'A star in our galaxy of crime writers' FINANCIAL TIMES It's August Bank Holiday, and the great Bramsbourne Fete and Flower Show. But this one is going… Read More

She lost her memory - will she lose her life? Superb crime fiction from 'A star in our galaxy of crime writers' FINANCIAL TIMES 'The mistress of unease' DAILY TELEGRAPH Mrs Anderson is starting to forget where she has put things, what she has bought, or even eaten. Living alone… Read More

It should have been her sanctuary - until things got murderous... 'Few authors are better than Margaret Yorke in generating a real sense of fear' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'The mistress of unease' DAILY TELEGRAPH Ruth Castle - alone, proud, defiant - is determined to rescue some personal happiness from the wreckage… Read More

When American journalist Jon Harkness is reassigned to his paper's London office, he quickly becomes embroiled in a bizarre tale involving an ancient family curse. Whilst out for a drive, his car is surrounded by an eerie fog and he finds himself on the wild Cornish coast by a medieval-looking… Read More

Ireland, 1651. A country ravaged by Oliver Cromwell's Act of Settlement. Under it, Fergal O'Breslin, a young clan chief, and his fellow Irish citizens are forced to leave their ancestral lands and travel to the cramped, rocky province of Connacht. There, honest men become robbers, proud men must beg, and… Read More

Lawyer Jesse Falkenstein thought his secretary Miss Williams was a remarkably efficient typist, but he felt she had drawbacks as a legal secretary. She had an earnest face, unfashionable tight curls and she irritated him very much. Jesse wished he could fire her. But she'd been his secretary for nine… Read More

'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune Ireland, 1749. Dennis McDermott, a witty, charming and daring young man with shades of the Scarlet Pimpernel, lives two lives in eighteenth-century Dublin. Fashionable society idolises him as a handsome, rakish man of their world, never suspecting that he is the mysterious… Read More

'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune New York in the days preceding the American Revolution was a dangerous place to be. Just ask sixteen-year-old James Bethune, who seems to be constantly followed by trouble. Offered a job at a newspaper, James sees out the revolution through the eyes… Read More

'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune In the sixteenth century lived two queens about whom much has been written: Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stuart. However, there are more than just two countries in the British Isles and there is a third monarch, of whom there are no tales.… Read More

'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune In the quiet suburb of Santa Monica, eighty-eight-year-old Mabel Foster loses her husband to a stroke. Rather than move Mabel into a retirement home, the neighbours hire Josephine Slaney to take care of her. The immense nurse is a godsend, the cost… Read More

Beautiful Nell Varney was a newcomer to Contera - and to murder. Suddenly she found herself in a strange courtroom faced with seven pairs of hate-ridden, accusing eyes. Seven witnesses had identified her as the murderer who had caused the death of two women by performing illegal abortions. Why would… Read More

Mystery writer Brendan Monroe is tormented by the fear that his flamboyant fictional detective P. I. Roy Barron has come to life. Is the author losing his mind? Or is someone making it seem that way? When Barron is found dead, Sergeant Dan Valentine of the Santa Monica police focuses… Read More

Irish-Italian detective Nick O'Hara, grandson of a Mafia don, knows who is responsible for his son's death, but his hands are tied. Abandoned by his wife, he grows increasingly desperate, going into a tailspin from which he can see only one escape: revenge. As Nick's life goes into freefall, he… Read More

On a winter night in a Bronx neighbourhood, a blow from a shovel fells a man in the street. From the scene flee six children, any of whom might have loosed the fatal strike. Weeks later, one of their fathers is executed for the crime. Four decades on, the Ryer… Read More

A woman dies by violence aboard the Santa Cristina. A radio flash from the West Indies brings word of an apparently related death. A man's body turns up, and in his hand is a suicide note written in one woman's handwriting but signed with another woman's name. But what part… Read More

Psychiatrist-sleuth Dr Basil Willing is in a tobacconist's in Manhattan when another customer follows him into the shop, buys cigarettes, and leaves in a hurry. The man hails a taxi to take him to 51st street with the instruction: 'Come back and call for me; I am Dr Basil Willing.'… Read More

In the second case featuring psychiatrist-sleuth Basil Willing, he is called to a university campus to help investigate the death of a scientist. It looks like suicide, but with local scandal aplenty, more murders in the mix and a dose of Nazi espionage, all may not be as it appears. Read More

Sid Shanley couldn't stay in one place very long. He had to keep on the run, changing towns, changing jobs, changing women. He worked out the perfect setup - no attachments, no trails, no explanations. But now a girl has caught up with him. Her name was Paula - and… Read More

Corporate hatchetman Hubbard is on his way to an industry convention to carry out a termination - a fancy way of saying he's about to toss a man and his family out in the street. But the convention is a modern Sodom of cheating husbands and ambitious wives, ready to… Read More

Three men and a beautiful girl on a cross-country terror spree - a coast to coast rampage of stealing, kidnapping, rape and killing. Who were they? Where did they come from? Why did they do it? With chilling detail, John D. MacDonald unwraps the grotesque inner world of these four… Read More

A gunman on the run, a seventeen-year-old girl on a family vacation, a jaded working girl, a guilt-stricken widower, an abandoned mistress. All heading fast down a route to sudden death. Then for one horrifying instant their lives are frozen in time, when a Cadillac drives at speed into oncoming… Read More

The Second World War produced numerous acts of self-sacrifice, but it also made many people rich. Under the cover of war, crime ranging from opportunistic looting to systematic theft was able to flourish. Donald Thomas draws on extensive archive material to reveal the ingenuity and sheer scale of wartime criminality,… Read More

With the war over, the forties, fifties and sixties have the aura of a golden age. But nostalgia is deceptive. From teenage Teddy Boy razor gangs and casual stabbings at dance halls to the psychopathic Krays, 'Mad' Frankie Fraser and Ronnie Biggs, Villains' Paradise reveals the chilling true story of… Read More

'Donald Thomas introduces us to the slums and fetid courtyards of nineteenth-century London and in doing so provides a sweeping portrait of the vast world that did not accept "Victorian Values". The villainy is outstanding. It is also entertaining. The author has a practised eye for the best anecdotes and… Read More

Chet Logan, known as the Axe Killer, escapes from custody while being escorted to jail. Disguised as a police officer, he meets up with movie writer Perry Weston and persuades him to drive to Weston's remote fishing lodge. Once there, and somewhat to Weston's surprise, Logan agrees to talk about… Read More

A choice collection of seven short stories by one of America's foremost storytellers and the author of the best-selling Travis McGee series. Featuring 'Dear Old Friend', 'The Annex', Quarrel', 'Double Hannenframis', 'The Random Noise of Love', The Willow Pool and 'Woodchuck', this collection displays MacDonald at his classic best. Starring… Read More

Offering indisputable evidence of the early talent that was to lead him to the top of the bestseller lists everywhere, these fourteen tales of crime and corruption, of sleuthing and suspense, of treachery, intrigue, and revenge, by the incomparable John D. MacDonald, were selected from the hundreds that originally appeared… Read More

From the author of the world-famous Travis McGee thrillers, thirteen of John D. MacDonald's earliest and best crime and mystery stories brought together in one volume. Written at the beginning of his career and originally published in American magazines only, these stories give us a taste of MacDonald's early achievements… Read More

'I had a hunch that madness was a predominant theme and normal condition for Americans living in the second half of this century' Charles Willeford Willeford's pulp classic features six incisive tales as fresh as the day they were first published in 1963. Writing at a time when we still… Read More

A fast-paced, twisty thriller about an art heist that spins out of control with murderous results... Now a major film starring Elizabeth Debicki, Claes Bang, Donald Sutherland and Mick Jagger 'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore Leonard 'Stunning' NEW YORKER Art critic James Figueras is… Read More

'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore Leonard Frank Mansfield is the cockfighter, a man obsessed with an illegal sport which is unspeakably cruel, unthinkably bloody - and incredibly exciting. His pursuit of the champion's medal takes him into the seamy underbelly of rural Southern life… Read More

'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore Leonard By day, Richard Hudson, woman-chaser and used-car salesman, works his crooked car lot with much success. By night, he returns home to a family of misfits. One day, seized by a feeling of terror and revulsion, he realises… Read More

'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore Leonard Amoral, sexy and brutal, Wild Wives was written in a sleazy San Francisco hotel in the early 1950s while Willeford was on leave from the army. This tale of deception features crooked detective Jacob C. Blake and his… Read More

'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore Leonard In this riveting novel of psychological suspense, Charles Willeford charts a duel trajectory of alcoholic desire and destruction that is at once poignant, terrifying and utterly authentic. Prowling the grimy streets of San Francisco, Helen is a beautiful,… Read More

'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore Leonard Russell Haxby is a ruthless used-car salesman obsessed with manipulating and cavorting with married women. In this classic or hard-boiled fiction, Willeford crafts a wry, sardonic tale of hypocrisy, intrigue and lust set in San Francisco in the… Read More

'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore Leonard Sergeant Hoke Moseley is struggling: his division chief is making ominous plans for him, a man he sent to jail for murder has moved in across the street, and he's stuck on one of his toughest cold cases… Read More

Marion is lost on a dark and lonely road; she's tired and hungry and afraid. She thinks she's dreaming when she sees a motel sign shining in the darkness: Bates Motel. But for Marion the nightmare is just beginning ... To most people Psycho needs no introduction, but although Alfred… Read More

It was strictly a duty call and Pat Carroll wasn't looking forward to it one bit. But she was in Wales and her fiance's family lived nearby. He was dead now, killed in an accident, and Pat felt that since she was so close to his family's home she should… Read More

Alec and Veronica Guest are a happily married couple living in the quiet village of Maddinghleigh. Their existence has been a peaceful one. Then, one of their friends has a valuable old clock stolen. The Guests don't believe the incident is too serious, but it turns out to be the… Read More

Retired headmaster Malcolm Chance and his wife, Frances, have settled down in the quiet village of Ravenswood, where the greatest excitement revolves around the newest production of the local dramatic society. Until, that is, the Chances' next-door neighbour is murdered. When another murder takes place and the investigation unfolds, it… Read More

Henrietta Cosgrove's eightieth birthday luncheon had gone very well, her five stepchildren all gathered to celebrate in her lovely old thatched house. But then Henrietta dropped a bombshell. To shore up her dwindling income, she proposed to sell two landscapes by a painter whose work had recently appreciated. That night… Read More

When Sam Partlett joined the staff at the Institute of Pomology at King's Weltham, he brought nothing but discord. But it was not Sam who was found dead at the Institute, throat slashed with one of the laboratory razors. In the close-knit scientific community, Inspector Day quietly sets to work… Read More

Why, on a wet and stormy night, did the old and very ill novelist Dan Braile decide to take a walk? When he doesn't come back his family are at first reluctant to call the police, despite the fact that he had claimed someone was trying to poison him. But… Read More

Dr Charles Gair was found hanged, but that is not what killed him. This was the first of the bizarre surprises awaiting those who penetrated the home of the head of the Martindale research establishment on a Sunday morning to see what was amiss. Even more startling was the discovery… Read More

Helena Sebright is given a three-month job in the newly independent African state of Uyowa. She is to escort a seven-year-old girl to stay with her grandparents there, and to bring her back to her parents, in England, at the end. It seems a lucky break. But Helena is not… Read More

Antonia Winfield sensed someone was following her. She'd seen a man in a brown suit. He was even behind her in the travel agents where she'd booked her holiday abroad. But perhaps she'd just imagined things. This year she was going on a restful, comfortable trip to a lovely Greek… Read More

Every Sunday on Radio Ardennes, the Counsellor had his hour. His voice clear, expressive and sympathetic as it answered a selection of the queries that crowded his post-bag. 'Just ask a question' was his motto. But even he did not expect Wallace Whatgift to ask for his help in solving… Read More

In the first place there was the Dangerfield Talisman, an ancient golden armlet set with diamonds and valued at $50,000 - an unguarded treasure, which, although stolen more than once, always came back. Second was the Dangerfield Secret. The last thief of the talisman has been found on the lawn… Read More

Hubbard made his money in blackmail, most detestable blackmail at that. A wealthy, lisping butterfly collector, there were no special regrets when he was found dead at his desk in his own home. Yet Colonel Sanderstead felt it his duty to probe the affair, since his nephew's best friends had… Read More

It was not altogether surprising that Ambrose Brenthurst was found brutally murdered outside Fountain Court the night he had presided over the diner meeting of the 'Hernshaw Thirteen Club'. Many were the potential murderers - some of them guests at the diner. But when a second murder takes place it… Read More

There was blood on the drawing-room floor and Hazel Deerhurst had disappeared wearing slippers over walking shoes, two pairs of stockings and a bright silk kimono. First investigations shed interesting light on Hazel. A mysterious machine is found at her home, some paintings and a cryptic telegram. She was also… Read More

In this, the tenth Clinton Driffield mystery, the action moves away from a country setting to the English suburbs, inhabited by a cast of unusual diversity: an ambitious young policeman, a naive journalist, an elderly clerk with dreams of foreign travel and an unhappily married Frenchwoman. This meticulously clued mystery… Read More

Philip Castleford was more than worried. Were all those years he had spent attending to Winifred's whims, enduring her habits, to count for nothing? He hadn't minded it too much for he thought that his daughter Hilary would have security - but now he found her shabbily treated and his… Read More

Nine men formed a sweepstake syndicate. One man died. To forestall legal argument they agreed that only living members should share any winnings. They won £241,920. And then the deadly arithmetic began. Nine less one left eight shares worth £30,240; Eight less one left seven shares worth £34,560; Seven less… Read More

Indicted by the state of New Jersey for the murder of retired Colonel William Farber. Dr Carl Coppolino had been having an affair with Farber's wife, Marjorie. Did he kill Marjorie's husband and his own wife so he could marry Marjorie? If he did, he may have regretted it, for… Read More

Tucker Loomis is a hard and dangerous man with a ruthlessness all West Bay fears and respects, and an improbable amount of money. Wade Rowley is a common man who aspires to honour but gets caught up in the footwork of a skilled swindler. In a pitiless game, with a… Read More

Welcome to the Eternal Church of the Believer, where devout workers operate state-of-the-art computer equipment to process the thousands of dollars that pour in daily and where hundreds of prayers are offered by armies of believers. Roy Owens arrives there after his journalist wife disappears while doing an exposé on… Read More

When a yacht explodes in the Bahamas, apparently killing six people, Sam Boyleston, an attorney from Texas and the brother of one of the victims, is compelled to investigate the circumstances, as does Raoul Kelly, a newspaper reporter. After the disaster the yacht's burned captain was temporarily marooned on a… Read More

Lucille Hanson had rid herself of the wrong man - her rich husband who lived casually and loved carelessly. Then she found another man she hoped would be right. She was putting together the pieces of her life - until all of her hopes came to rest at the bottom… Read More

James Wing was only trying to help his friend's widow. At least that's what he told himself after he warned Kat Hubble that the beautiful bay that she and her neighbours had struggled to save was now going to be sold to developers. He knew he shouldn't have told her… Read More

Step by step, Dwight McAran built a wall of vicious hate around himself. It was easy. He was a man who could slap one woman to death because she loved him, and hum a love song to another while he raped her. Sure, he did some time in jail. He… Read More

Sam Brice, the perfect rugged hero, is involved with a young widow named Janice Gantry. But when she vanishes, Janice leaves behind a trail of blackmail, murder and a man at war with his own sense of duty. Sam is too curious to steer clear of the mystifying disappearances off… Read More

Her employers are the high priests of Las Vegas and she is their handmaiden. Her job is to lead the lambs to the sacrifice, to keep them happy at the tables, where her partners slaughter the suckers. She longs to be free of the entertainers rubbing elbows with thugs at… Read More

When Mike Rodenska, a former journalist and recent widower, visits his old friend Troy Jamison in Florida, he's shocked at what he finds. For despite the parties, the shapely women, the devil-may-care air that surrounds Troy and his friends, Mike can see a life slowly coming apart. The only question… Read More

More than half a century ago, Papa Drovek opened his small grocery store at the junction of two country roads. As he bought more and more land, the roads became highways, and now the Droveks own a complex of hotels, restaurants, a truck stop, a shopping centre and two gas… Read More

American bachelor Miles Drummond, living in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and running out of money, half-heartedly places an ad in a few US newspapers announcing a summer art workshop. Much to his surprise, thirteen students write for details, and arrive in Cuernavaca a few weeks later. The hotel Miles has rented is… Read More

Leo Rice seems like a nice enough guy, but why does he have to choose their beach? He could head ten miles up the Florida strip and everyone could just live happily ever after - no questions asked. But Leo Rice does ask questions ... and suddenly Stebbins' Marina, an… Read More

Alex Doyle is a tough man on a tough assignment in Ramona Beach, Florida - the kind of place that doesn't trust strangers and is policed by a sheriff who echoes the locals' sentiments with a billy club. But Alex isn't an outsider, exactly. He grew up in Ramona Beach… Read More

Jerry Jamison wants out: out of a sloppy marriage, a dull job and the empty suburban rat race. Once Jerry had a beautiful bride and a good salary at her old man's successful business - that was before his wife turned into a lush. Before the business started to go… Read More

Her name was Cindy, and she was his neighbour's wife - the woman next door in the kind of suburbia that didn't make headlines. These were real people, nice people like Cindy and Carl who fought with the desperation of the damned to keep from wanting each other. Suddenly, though,… Read More

Sam Glidden owed all his success to the opportunities he'd received from Thomas McGann, president of the Harrison Corporation. But now McGann was dead, and Mike Dean, a wildly flamboyant business speculator, was looking to add the Harrison Corporation to his long list of conquests. McGann's spoiled offspring, Tommy and… Read More

On the surface, they seem like three very different people: Danny Bronson, a cunning ex-con struggling to go straight; his brother, Lee, a former Gridiron star turned college professor; and Johnny Keefler, a crooked parole officer who lives for revenge. But they all grew up in the same corner of… Read More

In life, Jane Ann never had much use for a halo, but in her violent death she finally earned one. When they found a suspect, everyone relaxed except Hugh MacReedy. Maybe he should have stayed out of it, but MacReedy owed a big debt to the patsy they were sending… Read More

The Los Angeles Homicide Department is a revolving door of crime where Lieutenant Luis Mendoza has hardly time to grab a sandwich between the serial muggings of seven senior citizens, the disappearance of a wheelchair-bound man, and the killing of one of two runaway girls. All this and Mendoza also… Read More

'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times A beautiful Hollywood blonde inexplicably vanishes from the restaurant she is dining in with her fiancé and is found with her neck broken and miles away from the scene of her disappearance. Who lured her away? How? And, the most… Read More

'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times Lieutenant Mendoza seems to be beset on all sides: at home, his wife Alison is convinced she is having twins; at the office his worry is a man called Francis Ingram, prime suspect for a murder Mendoza does not think… Read More

Did the twelfth member of the jury know something the rest did not...? Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club Circumstantial evidence was as good as proof in the trial of Viola Ross. Everything pointed to the conclusion that this beautiful woman had smothered her wisp… Read More

A movie star whose fame is on the decline - but did he take his own life or did someone else have an axe to grind? Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club Eight years ago René Tessier was at the height of his fame. Now… Read More

The most glamorous hotel in Europe is not immune to murder... Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club When Julian Marks, a well-known diamond merchant, is found murdered at the Hotel Fantastique in Monte Carlo, the motive is presumed to be theft. Marks always carried with… Read More

Suicide - or murder? The tiniest clue holds the answer. Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club When Florence Penny's body is found hanging from a beam in the bedsit she has been renting, it looks to Inspector Field like a case of suicide. Soon, though,… Read More

A grotesque murder and a mysterious woman lead to the most difficult choice of his life. Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club Andrew Fane is faced with five years in prison for fraud, and a penniless future. When he appeals for help from his uncle… Read More

A missing child - and she might not be the last victim... Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club Angela Toni, only nine years old, has been missing for several days, and it is Wilfrid Hersey's son Ben who is under suspicion. Hersey meets Detective Arthur… Read More

Dirk Wallace is handed a simple assignment - find out who's blackmailing Mrs Thorsen's daughter. Before long, Wallace realises that he's up against some very organised crime. And when things turn nasty, there's only one thing to do. Wallace and his assistant quit the Acme Detective Agency and go it… Read More

When Detective Tom Lepski shot down the runaway killer on his beat in Paradise City, he unleashed a chain of events that would involve two sets of criminals and a honeymoon couple in one of the most exciting nights any of them had seen for a long time. Wilbur Warrenton… Read More

Farrell Brannigan, President of the National Californian Bank, is an extremely successful man. So when he builds another bank in an up-and-coming town on the Pacific coast, he is given worldwide publicity, and this new bank is hailed as the 'safest bank in the world'. But Brannigan's success comes at… Read More

Helga Rolfe is blonde, beautiful, and bright enough to control her own multi-million pound empire. But not to control her secret weakness: sex. Former lover, Archer, knows it. He has an old score to settle with her and he needs cash. When handsome gigolo Christopher Greenville crosses his path, he's… Read More

Johnny Bianda is a man with a dream. He wants to own a boat off the coast of Florida and he only needs $186,000 to buy it. He steals the money from his firm, knowing that one day they'll notice and one day they'll kill him for it - after… Read More

Larry Carr is a diamond expert in need of a break. So when his psychiatrist suggests he has a change of scene, he jumps at the opportunity to move to Luceville, a struggling industrial town, and become a social worker. This, he thinks, will give him all the rest he… Read More

Even for a redhead, Helen Dester was wild - she'd driven one guy to drink and made another jump out of a top-floor window. Glyn Nash realises that to tangle with her will be dangerous. But he has no option if he wants a share of the $750,000 insurance money… Read More

Jay Benson had been one of the US Army's top snipers. In Vietnam he'd killed 82 Vietcong. But making the School of Shooting he'd taken over outside Paradise City pay was a tougher proposition than the Vietnamese jungle. So when the sinister Augusto Savanto turns up with an offer of… Read More

The Esmaldi necklace was worth about $350,000: one hundred matched diamonds the size of garden peas, set in platinum. The sort of necklace people would murder for ... And Al Barney, beachcomber and layabout, knew its history - a tale of hate, jealousy and violence; of beautiful, wanton women and… Read More

Mark Girland, good-for-nothing secret agent with a distinct weakness for money and women, finds himself in Prague for his latest adventure. But events in the Communist country prove all too much for Girland as he comes face-to-face with a sinister world of deception, fraud and corruption. 'The same compulsive readability… Read More