LITTLE MEN, BIG WORLD

Ben Reisman, veteran columnist for the Journal, is bored. So when he stumbles across a reference to a character known as "De Ark," an underworld person who seems to operate without anyone knowing about him, he is intrigued. "De Ark" is in fact, Mr. Orral Wanty, Arky to his friends, the right hand man of the Mover, the man who really runs the city. Arky's control is so tight, even Commissioner Stark, the zealous law-and-order crusader, has never heard of him. But Arky's hand is everywhere. He's the man Leon Sollas, front for the syndicate,...

The Autumn Dead

Jack Dwyer used to be a cop. Now he's a rent-a-cop and part-time actor. Dwyer isn't complaining--not much anyway--he's got a great girlfriend; he's older, a little heavier, but what the hell, that's life. Then the woman who drove him crazy during his teenage years, Karen Lane, re-appears; still beautiful, still bewitching. She wants him to locate a missing suitcase. But Dwyer knows there's more to this than an elusive bag. And soon enough, he becomes enmeshed in the past, tracking down old secrets, secrets that someone wants very much to remain buried--even...

Come Easy--Go Easy

Chet Carson works for the Lawrence Safe Corporation. One night temptation gets the better of him, and he and his partner decide to rob one of their clients. Some months later, Carson is languishing at Farnworth Prison. But Carson has a plan and soon escalates from convict to escaped con, on the run from the sadistic guards. That's when he comes across Carl Jensen at Point of No Return, a filling station on the edge of the desert highway. Jensen takes a chance on Carson and gives him a job--and a new lease on life. The Swede has a good feeling about...

FALSE STARTS

"It seemed clear to me I had always known I was going to jail. When I had bolted Redding to try to join the Navy, I had known. When I had told Percy, "We'll be back," I had known. When I had followed George into the all-night diner, I had known. I had served more time for a handful of inept burglaries than most men would have served for killing a police officer, and the prison was only my chosen instrument in the willful destruction of my own life."

Malcolm Braly spent the better part of his life behind bars. Arrested for a botched...

DIG MY GRAVE DEEP

Daniel Port works for Stoker as his number two man, the brains behind all the crooked deals that's kept Stoker's gang going for years. But there's a new set-up in town, a supposed reform party led by Bellamy. Trouble is, Bellamy's worse than Stoker and Port wants out of the whole rotten mess. But Stoker needs him and won't let him go, and Bellamy is putting a lot of pressure on Port to force him to join his side. All Port wants is a ticket out of town, with Shelly by his side. What he's got to do to make it happen is put together one more deal for Stoker....

THE CUT OF THE WHIP

Daniel Port is driving through Texas when the other car appears out of nowhere. When Port eventually wakes up, he finds a ministering angel named Jane and her father, Carl Heering, the richest man in town. Heering admits that it was his son, Robert, that ran into Port and that the kid has run off with important business papers. He offers Port an easy grand to bring his son and the papers back. But when Port tracks the kid down, all is not as it seems. The business papers are love letters, the Heering heir is kidnapped, and Port finds he must solve the...

NORTH BEACH GIRL

Erin is tired of being an artist's model. She's tired of working. Jobs are such a drag. The night she quits her latest modeling gig, she goes back to her pad she shares with her girlfriend, Bruno, and their roommates, Lilly and Marian, and starts drinking. They all live in San Francisco's North Beach, where nights are filled with bar hopping and Beat poetry. Hanging out. This night she meets Riley. He's looking for a nude model but Erin turns him down. He follows her home anyway. Bruno takes an immediate dislike to Erin's new drinking friend, and threatens...

KITTEN WITH A WHIP

You could always blame it on the heat... David Patton wakes to a real San Diego scorcher. His wife Virginia and daughter Katie are visiting her mother in San Francisco, giving him a wild sense of freedom for the weekend. What he doesn't expect this overheated morning is a teenage runaway who has broken into his house while he is sleeping. Jody Drew is just 17 but is very aware of her power over David as he tries to be the gentleman and help her out. Jody doesn't want David's help--she wants David. She wants him, she wants his home, she wants to...

PAPERBACK CONFIDENTIAL: Crime Writers of the Paperback Era by Brian Ritt

These are the authors who turned out the dark noirs and hardboiled thrillers, private detective puzzles and psychological suspense, police procedurals and backwood melodramas, stories of passion... and cold-blooded murder. 132 profiles of the men and women who wrote the books that became the backbone of the Pulp and Paperback Era from the 1930s through the 1960s.

Here you will find information on the acknowledged masters like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M....

NOTHING IN HER WAY

When Michael Belen runs into the cherubic con man named Wolford Charles in New Orleans, he has no idea he had just opened the door to his ex-wife Cathy. She and Charles and Judd Bolton are working a con on a man named Goodwin, who had been a partner with a contractor named Lachlan down in South America. Lachlan had worked a swindle which had wiped out Cathy and Michael's parents, and now as far as Cathy is concerned, it's payback time. From Goodwin to Lachlan, Belen commits himself to Cathy and her scheme. When a drug-addled gangster named Donnelly starts...