Edgar Allan Poe Award winner, Pulitzer Prize nominee, and best-selling author John McAleer, Ph.D. (Harvard), taught crime fiction at Boston College for nearly four decades, nurturing authors like George V. Higgins (The Friends of Eddie Coyle), Chuck Hogan (The Standoff), Margaret McLean (Under Oath), James Devlin (Elmore Leonard), and Ted Murphy (the "Belltown Mysteries"). Now he and his son, Andrew McAleer-also a mystery author and Professor of Crime Fiction at Boston College-share the secrets, techniques and art of crafting the mystery novel. Mystery Writing in a Nutshell is an invaluable...

The Ripper of Storyville is the first collection about one of Hoch's most imaginative creations, Ben Snow, the 19th-century gunman who is often confused with Billy the Kid. The book contains 14 stories, including 7 rare adventures published more than 30 years ago in The Saint Mystery Magazine. Introduction by the author; Ben Snow chronology and bibliography by Marvin Lachman.

Edward D. Hoch's latest collection contains 14 stories about Nick Velvet, the choosey crook who steals only the seemingly valueless -- a bald man's comb, an overdue library book, a faded flag, a playing card, and so on. And in order to pull off a successful robbery, Nick often has to solve a crime as well -- sometimes the crimes committed by Sandra Paris, "The White Queen", who claims to do impossible things before breakfast. The Velvet Touch contains all of Nick's encounters with the White Queen. The book includes an introduction by the author and a complete Nick Velvet checklist.

Dr. Sam Hawthorne, a New England country doctor in the first half of the twentieth century, was constantly faced by murders in locked rooms and impossible disappearances. Nothing Is Impossible contains fifteen of Dr. Sam's most extraordinary cases solved between 1932 and 1936.