Gentle Reader: You’ve probably never been suspected of embezzling a bank of two hundred thousand bucks, or of murdering a D.A., and I sure hope you never have been. I was suspected of having done both.

That was six years ago, in Lyncastle, a small town in the Middle West. It was too much for me at the time and, while nothing was ever proved either way, I lit out of town for the West and wound up in the oil fields of Oklahoma. At least that’s the way Johnny McBride told it to me, and we became great buddies. The funny thing about it was that we looked exactly alike — nobody could tell us apart. It was pretty confusing for a while, but it was sort of run, too. We had some great rimes together, and I decided I’d come back to Lyncastle to see what I could find out about this mess. Knowing Johnny as well as I did, I was pretty sure Johnny wasn’t guilty.

Well, I found our all right. I found out plenty! It’s a good thing I can take it because by the time I got through I had taken just about everything chat Lyncastle could hand out. But it wasn’t altogether one-sided on char score; I can dish it our, too!

If you like things rough and tough The Long Wait is for you. You won’t have as long a wait to get your satisfaction as I had to get mine.

Signed, Johnny

The word “legend” truly applies to Mickey Spillane, whose mystery novels have endured as bestsellers for more than half a century. This unique book collects several of his first-rate stories that have never appeared in a Spillane book before.

Three of the stories center on Spillane’s love of flying and his experiences as a pilot. “Hot Cat” — under the title “The Flier” — was the title novella of a rare British paperback. A typical macho mystery, it’s vintage Spillane. “I’ll Die Tomorrow” is another real find. Unseen since it was published in the January 1953 edition of Cavalier, it’s one of Spillane’s toughest, purest crime stories — no nice-guy P.I. here.

“Affair with the Dragon Lady” is an uncharacteristically warm, nostalgic piece. And “The Veiled Woman” is the controversial science fiction yarn that had input from another great pulp writer, Howard Browne. “The Night I Died” is a Mike Hammer story, with all the classic Spillane ingredients: betrayal, sex, gangsters, and revenge. Two real-life vignettes — “Toys for the Man Child” and “The Chinatown Man” — round out this collection of “lost Spillane.”

A true delight for crime fiction fans, this edition is sure to become a collector’s item.