A long-distance call from a Texas city on his birthday gives Benjamin Dill the news that his sister--it's her birthday, too, they were born exactly ten years apart--has died in a car bomb explosion. It's the chief of police calling--Felicity Dill worked for him; she was a homicide detective. Dill is there that night, the beginning of his dogged search for her killer. What he finds is no surprise to him, because Benjamin Dill is never surprised at what awful things people will do--but it's a real surprise to the reader. As Newsday said when the novel was first published, "One sure thing...

Would you be wary if someone gave you the assignment of delivering five million dollars to a Philippine terrorist--never mind from whom or why? Booth Stallings, a terrorism expert just fired from his job at a bashful organization that never admitted its mount in the Washington merry-go-round, is wary. So wary that he cuts in con man "Otherguy" Overby, who in turn involves Artie Wu, pretender to the throne of China, and his partner, Quincy Durant. Obviously, good patriots don't want to hand over all that money to bad guys. Better they keep it for themselves. Which inevitably raises the...

At the height of the Cold War, two Americans are runnng a bar in the West German capital, called Mac's place. One of the pair, Michael Padillo, isn't around a lot; he keeps disappearing on "business trips." McCorkle, his partner, wisely doesn't ask questions; he knows Padillo has a second job -- he's a (reluctant) US agent. But McCorkle is ready to answer a call for help from Padillo, and he joins his friend in a blind journey with no inkling of what they will encounter at the turn of each dark and dangerous corner.

"Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?" -- Mark Twain

Ross Thomas chose the quotation from Huckleberry Finn as the text of his post World War II story as well as for the title. When Lucifer Dye is released from three months in a Hong Kong prison, debriefed, handed a false passport, a new wardrobe and a $20,000 check, his haughty control makes it clear that Dye's career with his country has been permanently terminated. But a good agent is always in demand, and just a few hours later Dye is being interviewed for a highly...

The Fourth Durango is not your ordinary Durango. It's not in Spain, or Mexico, and it's not a ski town in the Colorado Rockies, although Durangos do exist in all of those places. This Durango has an industry, albeit a rather odd one-it is a hideout business, a place where people pay to find sanctuary from former friends and associates who are either trying to kill them, or have them killed. Into this Durango comes a former chief justice of a state supreme court, followed by son-in-law Kelly Vines to act as his emissary to the beautiful and savvy mayor. Following them come a false...

Missionary Stew follows political fundraiser Draper Haere on a quest to uncover the secret behind a right-wing coup in an unnamed Central american country. Haere seeks the information in order to get dirt on his boss's opponent in the 1984 US Presidential election. Haere's pursuit of the truth repeatedly puts Haere's life in danger, as the powers-that-be stop at nothing to keep the episode buried. Along the way, Haere carries on an affair with the wife of his candidate and enlists the aid of Morgan Citron, an almost-Pullitzer winning journalist who has recently been released from an...