John Faith is a stranger in the isolated town of Pomo in the wilds of Northern California. Who is he? Why show up now, during the off-season, when there is nothing to do but get into trouble? He is big, ugly, and “strange,” so it is no wonder that he arouses suspicions or inspires threats. His swift departure is fondly desired by almost all who cross his path. When a beautiful, lonely woman is brutally murdered after spending time with him, Faith is the prime and logical suspect. Discovering the identity of the killer becomes as important to Faith as it is to everyone else... except the murderer.

A collection of stories

In this Spur Award-winning story, a Pinkerton detective, a couple on the run, a wanted man, and a traveling salesman with mysterious wares all converge on the banks of Crucifixion River to take shelter from an impending storm.

No suspense collection is complete without this anthology. Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, the stories in this volume represent many of the biggest names in detective and suspense fiction: Ellery Queen, Harold Q. Masur, Celia Fremlin, Jack Ritchie, Patricia Highsmith and Bill Pronzini are only a few of the prize-winning authors in this amazing volume.

An empty train yard at midnight. A small cabin bathed in the light of a full moon. A seedy Skid Row hotel in San Francisco. These are the places where fear lives. Collected for the first time are 26 terrifying stories that span nearly three decades in the career of this master writer of suspense and horror.

Dashiell Hammett and William Vollmann are just two treats in this stellar sequel to the smash-hit original volume of San Francisco Noir, which captures the dark mythology of a world-class locale.

Abducted by a shadowy figure he never sees, chloroformed and taken to a remote mountain cabin, the Nameless Detective is told by that figure before he is deserted, that the mission is one of revenge. Nameless has destroyed his mysterious abductor’s life and now his life in turn will be destroyed.

Chained with a limited supply of food and water and just enough room in the shackles to allow him to feed himself, Nameless knows that the abductor must be a component of one of his old cases… someone who he has tracked and caught for the police, someone who has served prison time and, released, wants Nameless to suffer in turn. But the detective cannot deduce who that abductor may be and, as his ordeal begins, he understands that his efforts must be more directed toward survival and escape; if he does not find a way free of the shackles he will die. Freeing himself of the shackles will involve more than an act of physical escape; Nameless must come to understand the entirety of his own life and the nature of a profession which has caused him and those he loves risk at the highest level.

Through the Walpurgisnacht of that confinement and escape, Nameless does indeed come to understand himself and in a shocking, complex, surprising but inevitable ending, Nameless comes to understand as well the nature of entrapment and purgation, and how a rite of passage must crucially take place internally as well as externally. The denouement of the novel is resonant and shattering: it is unforgettable.