In this city, you have to pay attention. In this city, things are happening all the time, all over the place, and you don't have to be a detective to smell evil in the wind.

Take this week's tabloids: the face of a dead girl is splashed across the front page. She was found sprawled near a park bench not seven blocks from the police station. Detectives Carella and Brown soon discover the girl has a most unusual past. Meanwhile, the late-night news tracks the exploits of The Cookie Boy, a professional thief who leaves his calling card - a box of chocolate chip cookies - at the scene of each score. And while the detectives of the 87th Precinct are investigating these cases, one of them is being stalked by the man who killed his father.

Welcome to the Big Bad City.

Detective Steve Carella of the 87th precinct had a pretty complete description of the man he was looking for:

The man was tall, blond, handsome — a powerhouse of strength and sex. Women gave him whatever he wanted.

And he made some strange requests.

After seducing a woman, he would ask her to have a small heart tattooed on her hand, to show the world that she belonged to him.

When the woman had been thus branded as his property — he murdered her.

Three chillers from the files of the 87th Precinct: A young, wealthy woman is found strangled to death in a slum apartment leaving behind only her name, some cancelled checks, and an unknown killer in The Empty Hours ... A big, ugly "J" is painted on the synagogue wall by a killer who had brutally stabbed the rabbi on Passover ... A bright red pool of blood spread into the snow as Cotton Hawes watched his quiet ski weekend turn into a hunt for a ski-slope slayer in Storm.

When Ralph, a loving older brother upset by his brother’s gay lifestyle, is accused of his murder and the evidence points to his guilt, Matthew Hope must work with a few fleeting but crucial clues to prove Ralph’s innocence.

Twenty stories from the man who created the 87th Precinct. Stories of the street and the city, stories of the cops and their prey. Life in a Chinese lobster-shop, the making of a porn queen, and the agony of being jailed with a non-stop talking cellmate. Places and people only he could describe.

The fiftieth is pure gold: from the author The New York Times calls "the man with the golden ear" comes the fiftieth novel in the th Precinct series. In this city, you can get anything done for a price. If you want someone's eyeglasses smashed, it'll cost you a subway token. You want his fingernails pulled out? His legs broken? You want him more seriously injured? You want him hurt so he's an invalid his whole life? You want him skinned, you want him burned, you want him — don't even mention it in a whisper — killed? It can be done. Let me talk to someone. It can be done. The hanging death of a nondescript old man in a shabby little apartment in a meager section of the th Precinct was nothing much in this city, especially to detectives Carella and Meyer. But everyone has a story, and this old man's story stood to make some people a lot of money. His story takes Carella, Meyer, Brown, and Weeks on a search through Isola's seedy strip clubs and to the bright lights of the theater district. There they discover an upcoming musical with ties to a mysterious drug and a killer who stays until . is 's fiftieth novel of the th Precinct and certainly one of his best. The series began in with Cop Hater and proves him to be the man who has been called "so good he should be arrested."

This mugger is special.

He preys on women, waiting in the darkness… then comes from behind, attacks them, and snatches their purses. He tells them not to scream and as they're on the ground, reeling with pain and fear, he bows and nonchalantly says, “Clifford thanks you, madam.” But when he puts one victim in the hospital and the next in the morgue, the detectives of the 87th Precinct are not amused and will stop at nothing to bring him to justice.

Dashing young patrolman Bert Kling is always there to help a friend. And when a friend's sister-in-law is the mugger's murder victim, Bert's personal reasons to find the maniacal killer soon become a burning obsession… and it could easily get him killed.

Hillerman, author of the Joe Leaphorn mysteries, and Herbert, editor of The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, trace this short-story genre from its beginnings in the hands of Edgar Allen Poe through its development by the likes of Erle Stanley Gardner, Mary Roberts Rinehart and Anthony Boucher to its current practice by such masters as Marcia Muller. Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," which established a great many of the whodunit conventions, is indispensable to such an overview. Raymond Chandler's "I'll be Waiting" emits a doom-laden atmosphere right from the first line; William Faulkner shows unexpected economy of language?and a transparent plot?in "An Error in Chemistry." Ed McBain scores high marks in "Small Homicide," in which the tiny details of a baby's untimely death resonate uncomfortably. As represented in this competent, unstartling collection, Linda Barnes ("Lucky Penny") easily outsasses Sue Grafton ("The Parker Shotgun"). Hillerman makes a solid appearance with "Chee's Witch," and in "Benny's Space" Muller captures the full subtle force of her novel-length vision.

A cadre of trained men, led by a ruthless former naval officer, succeeds in taking over a small town on the Florida coast and shutting it off completely from all communication with the outside world.

Why?

What is their goal?

As suspenseful as it is frightening, The Sentries piles excitement on excitement as a group of super-patriots mounts an almost foolproof scheme to force America’s hand in the Cold War and change the course of history.

It is a chilling tale of what could happen tomorrow in today’s balance-of-terror world.

When three immigrants are found dead in a grisly tableau, a Florida attorney defends the man who insists he’s innocent… though he’s thrilled to see the trio slaughtered.

In a walled garden surrounded by skyscrapers, Father Michael Birney met an unholy end, stabbed by an assailant who invaded his vespers prayers and then vanished as twilight overtook the big city. A stone's throw from the crime scene, a congregation of Satan worshipers chants its disturbing incantations - an irony not lost on Detectives Carella and Hawes, who search among the cultists for a killer. But it will take more than a leap of faith for the cops of the 87th Precinct to expose the truth behind the deadliest - and bloodiest - of sins.

A collection of suspense stories, puzzle stories, whodunits and tricky whydunits involving police detectives, private eyes, talented and sometimes lucky amateurs, armchair detectives, and ethnic detectives.