Search Results for: on-the-run

‘Pretty Boy’ Johnny McIver is a small-time crook thinking big. But when he and his girlfriend ‘Solitaire’ cross gangland chief Sonny Tarrant he is soon made to realise how small he really is. Forced on the run for a murder he did not commit, trying to lose himself among the post-war Bournemouth holidaymakers, Johnny McIver is a man in panic, a man ‘dancing in the dark’. A man who could soon be dancing at the end of a rope…

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 needs.

But soon he runs into Rhea Morgan, a ruthless, vicious thief who also happens to be extremely attractive. He falls headlong into the criminal world and embarks upon a thrilling, rapid and dastardly adventure …

When a woman’s body is found by the Thames river police, floating opposite the Houses of Parliament in London, it doesn’t take DCI Brock long to work out that she has been murdered.

Further investigation reveals the woman was one of a stable of prostitutes run by a shadowy figure wanted in his native Australia. But the investigation presses other names upon Brock and Poole, and they must suffer several missed turns and pay the price for their assumptions before they get their man.

‘A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

Queer cases run in batches in Los Angeles and Lieutenant Luis Mendoza has a few of them on his books. There’s the case of the man who is terrified of vampires and who comes to a violent end; there’s the odd affair of the theft of tropical fish known as Regal Angels. Then, there’s the sweet old lady who holds up banks.

It’s all in a day’s work in this characteristic Dell Shannon thriller…

The rift in the fabric of space was fast approaching the Well World, and time was running out. Troops all over the planet were gathering for the final battle.

Nathan Brazil and Mavra Chang somehow had to reach the Well of Souls in time to save the universe and before any of the hostile natives managed to kill them.

At best, a difficult mission. At worst, impossible – especially since there was a price on Brazil’s head and many would be claimants! For Brazil, the difficult was but the work of a moment – the impossible would take a little longer!

D.A. Doug Selby was in trouble again. An enticing redhead had been murdered; the county newspaper, The Blade, was after his neck; he had an unsolved jewellery theft on his hands and that sly, unscrupulous attorney A.B. Carr was running circles around him.

Selby knew that somehow or other all four of his troubles were tied up in one explosive bundle. But how could he open the bundle … without setting off more murder?

Joey Luck and his daughter Cindy are small-time criminals going nowhere fast, until they join forces with Vin Pinna, a hardened criminal on the run from Miami.

They soon begin to set their sights higher and turn their hands to kidnapping. But their hostage, ex-movie star Don Elliot, seems to have different ideas. When he wants in they form a ‘quartet in crime’, and this time the stakes are higher still – eight Russian stamps worth a million dollars.

‘Realistic and suspenseful far beyond his average’ Observer

‘My favourite American crime-writer’ New York Herald Tribune

Charles O’Connor of the Glendale police and Vic Varallo are having dinner with their wives when they are interrupted by a call informing them of murder. The victim is an old, nearly blind woman, killed in her daughter’s flat.

This is the first of a spate of crimes including a serial dog thief, the hit-and-run killing of a young mother and her two children, a knife fight and a row of flower pots – growing marijuana. All in a day’s work for the Glendale P. D.

To a man, the members of the LAPD homicide department were yawning with unaccustomed inactivity. Then everything happened at once – a cop killed by a hit-and-run driver; the questionable suicide of a young girl; and the victim (apparently) of a heart attack found in the clutter of her ‘second-hand’ shop.

It was the last that led Lieutenant Luis Mendoza to the Celtic Hotel, where events moved swiftly and with about as much clarity as the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. But, in this case, the tea party was lethal.

‘A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense’ Los Angeles Times

A castle, a deserted village, and murder in the Scottish Highlands

When child psychologist and US Naval Intelligence officer Lieutenant Peter Dunbar takes on a secret mission in the Scottish Highlands at the end of World War II, he finds himself drawn into the lives of a troubled boy and his beautiful young cousin.

But why does Johnny Stockton refuse to explain why he keeps running away from his comfortable home? And how might the answer be entangled with the mystery of an escaped German prisoner and a dying man’s message?

Some people find it hard to trust Robin Allbeury, a wealthy lawyer and an expert on marital secrets, who runs an unorthodox sideline helping troubled wives escape from their abusive marriages.

For some women, help comes too late. Women like Lynne Bolsover, wife and mother of two, whose battered body lies beneath sacking on a Hertfordshire allotment. A victim of a brutish husband, or so it would seem …

‘Genuinely scary … touches of sheer horror … a real page-turner’ Daily Telegraph

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 Inspector Hunter, as they watch and wait, piecing together the clues to trap the killer before another life is lost.

Inspector Hunter comes to learn much about the inhabitants of Pennycross – who resort to their own drastic action when a suspicious character is seen running through the woods…

Florence in the year 1518 is riven by scientific and sociological change caused b the wonderful devices of the Great Engineer, Leonardo da Vinci. Now he is old and lives as a recluse working behind the walls of his castle. The Raphaelites, artists and anti-technologists led by Raphael of Urbino, call for his excommunication.
Pasquale di Cione fiesole, an apprentice painter witnesses an assassination attempt on Raphael at a Cathedral service. The weapon falls into his hands, and he is soon on the run from engineers and artists, desperate to prove his innocence.

Homeworld is heaven on earth.
If you don’t ask questions.

Homeworld is stable at last, hundreds of years after the collapse of the 20th Century economy. For the millions of proles, life is still a grim ordeal, but for the lucky few, like Engineer Jan Kulozik, there is every kind of luxury. Except one. On Homeworld, where everything and everyone is monitored by the faceless power of government, there is no freedom.

Jan Kulozik knew nothing of the Resistance; he probably didn’t want to. But suddenly, he is part of it. And running for his life.

It is the far future. Earth is beautifully planned efficiently run and happily united. It is the world that dreamers have envisioned since the beginning of time – no slums, no crime, no poverty, no disease, no shortages. But still, it is a world with problems – people have become so lazy, so self-satisfied, that human progress has all but ceased. To make matters worse, addicts of the newly-developed “programmed dreams” are increasing at an enormous rate.

Only a few individuals understand the far-reaching consequences of these problems; only a few realize that the human race is destroying itself.

Are there aliens among us? Are the chariots of the gods returning? If so – are they for us or against us?

John Brunner, award-winning author and science fiction writer extraordinary, takes the questions now on everyone’s mind, and gives one possible answer in this startling novel.

Here is an edge-of-the-seat story of the man who discovers that the vanguard of the aliens are indeed amongst us – and that the human species has but a few hours left before our time runs out.

It’s a science fiction thriller you won’t be able to put down.

Thirteen fantastical tales, including What Time Do You Call This? – a wildly ironic story about a bank robber who shuttles to an alternate universe and runs into himself. Communication – a modest plan by a shaman spiritualist gets out of hand when the dead begin to contact him. And Isles Where Good Men Lie – a space caravan of scale-armoured, bacteria-laden immigrants begins to make landings on Earth every twenty-two hours.. and is likely to do so for the next twelve centuries.

Old Jake Pickett is a strange one.

He can turn bullets to dust or collapse skyscrapers with his mind. But all he really wants to do with his “magic” is entertain the poor kids who live, like him, near the chemical dump. Or talk telepathically with his crippled niece, Amanda.

Then a giant company decides that the only way to cover up their mess is to eliminate the people who have been affected, for better or worse, by the seeping industrial wastes.

Now Jake and Amanda are running for their lives. And ours.

THE GORGON, a brilliant shocker that leads off this scintillating collection of Tanith Lee’s tales, was the winner of the World Fantasy Award for best short story of the year in 1983. It is appropriate that it gives its title to these tales ranging from horror and the supernatural to science fiction, from the writer who has been justly termed “Princess Royal of Heroic Fantasy.”

Here you will find unforgettable encounters of men and beasts – of dragons and unicorns, cats and seals, virgins and vampires. This is truly a feast of treasures for everyone whose taste runs to a gourmet imagination.

Inspector Martineau has a nasty murder to solve: that of a blonde girl, aged just twelve. Martineau knows that child murder can be habit forming, that such cases encourage copycats. They have to move quickly.

But they aren’t quick enough, and two days later, the girl’s death is followed by another. Granchester Police redouble their efforts, yet the killer escapes them. Feelings run high: for the parents, neighbours and the murderer … Then the police close in on Cherub – young, plump, his mother’s darling. But have they got the right man?

Noel Hutson considers himself a gentleman adventurer-but running guns in Morocco during Algeria’s revolution, he gets more than he bargained for.
Noel goes missing, and his brother Darrell Hutson comes to Tangier to search. Darrell soon finds himself immersed in a shady world of ruthless smugglers and nationalist Muslim fanatics.
When Noel disappeared, he took with him an enormous payment. Both sides think Darrell will lead them to it.
The stakes are unimaginably high-and Darrell isn’t the only one who could get hurt.

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 lot of papers, having fled to New York.

It turns out there’s an illicit side to the business – and that James Morden’s wife, Lilith, is a major player.

The strands of the plot seem past untangling, but the family solicitor, William Turnbull, grasps every thread and draws them all together . . .

The Manning Company is a big business, but although it was headed by Claire Manning, the founder’s widow, before her death, her son John had been running the firm for many years and was the undisputed successor. So why did Claire leave almost everything to her third cousin, whom no one associated with the firm has ever heard of?

Enter Jesse Falkenstein, who is launched into an investigation of Claire Manning’s past – and a litany of treachery, fraud, blackmail, abortion, impersonation and sudden death.

‘My favourite American crime-writer’ New York Herald Tribune

Their space-yacht, pursued by angry Adderkops thirsting for their blood, has run into serious engine trouble. Picking up the trail of another alien spaceship, they decide to board it and force its crew to take them home. But once aboard, its not so easy to find the crew: they’re faced with cages full of bizarre, other-wordly animals: Tiger apes, Elephantoids, Gorilloids, Caterpiggles, Helmet beasts, Tentacle centaurs. One set of these extraordinary creatures must be the crew, in hiding. But which? Survival depends on finding the right answer…