This second volume of "Opening Shots" is a collection of twenty-three first stories published by prominent mystery and crime writers. Some of these offerings are remarkably mature, professional work. Others are more obviously early works, before the writers' skills reached full maturity. But every one of them is a pleasure to read, and in each can be seen the seed of the writer's craft. "Each writer has included an introduction worth the price of admission all by themselves," observes Block. "Writers, it seems to me, are never more eloquent or more interesting that when they reminisce...
This second volume of "Opening Shots" is a collection of twenty-three first stories published by prominent mystery and crime writers. Some of these of...
THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED ... 1938. Alexander Roth is hitchhiking from New York to Los Angeles, where he hopes to reconnect with his self-absorbed, cutesy-poo girlfriend. A car stops to pick him up and he is soon plunged into a long nightmare from which there may be no escape. This fatalistic novel is a forgotten noir masterpiece that has languished for decades in the swamps of neglected crime fiction. In 1945, film director Edgar G Ulmer cranked out the movie version in a couple of weeks on a microscopic budget, and it is now widely recognized as one of the greatest gems in film noir...
THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED ... 1938. Alexander Roth is hitchhiking from New York to Los Angeles, where he hopes to reconnect with his self-absorbed, cu...
Cashed out from the NYPD after 24 years, Doak Miller operates as a private eye in steamy small-town Florida, doing jobs for the local police. Like posing as a hit man and wearing a wire to incriminate a local wife who's looking to get rid of her husband. But when he sees the wife, when he looks into her deep blue eyes...
He falls - and falls hard. Soon he's working with her, against his employer, plotting a devious plan that could get her free from her husband and put millions in her bank account. But can they do it without landing in jail? And once he's kindled his taste for...
Cashed out from the NYPD after 24 years, Doak Miller operates as a private eye in steamy small-town Florida, doing jobs for the local police. Like ...
The Criminal Defense Lawyer. Redefined. Martin H. Ehrengraf, dapper and diabolical, may be Lawrence Block's darkest creation. He's the defense attorney who never sees the inside of a courtroom, because all his clients are innocent--no matter how guilty they may seem. Some even believe themselves to be guilty: they remember pulling the trigger, or wiring the dynamite to their spouse's car, or holding the bloody blade. But things have a way of working out when Martin Ehrengraf is on the case. Evidence turns up, incriminating someone else. More murders occur, with the same M.O. And the gate of...
The Criminal Defense Lawyer. Redefined. Martin H. Ehrengraf, dapper and diabolical, may be Lawrence Block's darkest creation. He's the defense attorne...
An MWA Grand Master tells it straight: Fredric Brown: "When I read Murder Can Be Fun, I had a bottle of bourbon on the table and every time Brown's hero took a drink, I had a snort myself. This is a hazardous undertaking when in the company of Brown's characters, and, I've been given to understand, would have been just as dangerous around the author himself. By the time the book was finished, so was I." Raymond Chandler: "You have to wonder how he got it so right. He spent a lot of time in the house-working, reading, writing letters. He saw to his wife, who required a lot of attention in her...
An MWA Grand Master tells it straight: Fredric Brown: "When I read Murder Can Be Fun, I had a bottle of bourbon on the table and every time Brown's he...
Cashed out from the NYPD after 24 years, Doak Miller operates as a private eye in steamy small-town Florida, doing jobs for the local police. Like posing as a hit man and wearing a wire to incriminate a local wife who's looking to get rid of her husband. But when he sees the wife, when he looks into her deep blue eyes... He falls - and falls hard. Soon he's working with her, against his employer, plotting a devious plan that could get her free from her husband and put millions in her bank account. But can they do it without landing in jail? And once he's kindled his taste for...
Cashed out from the NYPD after 24 years, Doak Miller operates as a private eye in steamy small-town Florida, doing jobs for the local police. Like pos...
Here's CHIP HARRISON-the second series character created by Lawrence Block, bestselling author of A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES... Chip's debut in NO SCORE opens with the lad orphaned and cast adrift by the loathsome headmaster of his prep school. Thus unfolds a picaresque tale in which young Chip travels far and wide, determined to make his way in the world and somehow shrug off the awful cloak of virginity. This earnest and endearing Lecher in the Wry finds work as an assistant to Gregor the Pavement Photographer (whose wife keeps him forever on Third Base, and won't let him steal home) and...
Here's CHIP HARRISON-the second series character created by Lawrence Block, bestselling author of A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES... Chip's debut in NO SC...
Here's CHIP HARRISON-the second series character created by Lawrence Block, bestselling author of A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES.. Chip's second adventure in CHIP HARRISON SCORES AGAIN begins when our lad finds a discarded wallet holding a bus ticket to Bordentown, South Carolina. Instead of cashing it in, he uses it-and winds up as an assistant manager in the hamlet's finest bordello. (Well, it's also the only bordello.) And that's just the beginning. While the virginity that plagued him in NO SCORE is no longer an issue, our Lecher in the Wry retains the irresistible innocence that makes him...
Here's CHIP HARRISON-the second series character created by Lawrence Block, bestselling author of A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES.. Chip's second adventur...
Here's CHIP HARRISON-the second series character created by Lawrence Block, bestselling author of A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES... How can a series predicated on the hero's sexual innocence survive past a second book? How can our Chip remain the same age forever? Simple, Block decided, and put our Lecher in the Wry to work for a private detective, the remarkable Leo Haig. Haig believes that Nero Wolfe really exists, and that if he distinguishes himself professionally he may one day be invited to dine at the Great Man's table. And Chip hires on as Haig's eyes and ears-if not his nose and throat....
Here's CHIP HARRISON-the second series character created by Lawrence Block, bestselling author of A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES... How can a series pred...
