Abner Murder was due to freeze to death in August! That’s what that weird crystal-gazer foretold — who’d already accurately predicted three equally impossible dooms. So before the stars could put the freeze on the little detective, Abner had to jump to scorch the trigger-fingers of Fate’s criminal hustlers.

San Francisco homicide detective Frost Easton hadn’t seen his estranged friend Denny in years. Not until he dies in Frost’s arms uttering a final inexplicable word: Lombard.Denny appears to be the latest victim in a string of murders linked by a distinctive clue: the painting of a spiraled snake near the crime scenes. Is it the work of a serial killer? Or is Denny’s death more twisted and personal?To find the answer, Frost reaches into a nest of vipers — San Francisco’s shady elite — where the whispered name of Lombard is just one secret. Now, drawn into a cat-and-mouse game with an enemy who knows his every move, Frost finds there is no one he can trust. And somewhere down the crooked streets of the city, Frost’s cunning adversary is coiled and ready to strike again.

It is more than slightly disconcerting for a man lying in bed in his fifth-floor hotel room to observe a girl’s tanned legs suddenly dangling over the windowsill. Followed by the rest of her. It is further upsetting if the man is clothed only in a bandage covering a bullet wound — and has $60,000 in illegally acquired currency in a suitcase.

Not that Grofield is really a thief; he merely moonlights in the all-too-frequent intervals when his acting career is interrupted by unemployment.

For a while Grofield and the girl, whose name is Ellen Marie Fitzgerald, swap some fairly preposterous lies about what each of them is doing there in Mexico City. Then Grofield decides to do a switch on the purloined letter bit and puts the truth right out where it can be seen. Ellen’s lies continue, and they are lulus — a story of star-crossed love, two overprotective aunts from whom she is fleeing, and so on. The “aunts,” however, turn out to be very sinister and extremely professional hoods, and Ellen’s most incredible story turns out to be true.

Captured and closely guarded, the damsel and her reluctant protector manage by a masterpiece of inventiveness to escape the armed assassins. Then begins a wild chase down the one and only road to Acapulco, where Ellen must arrive, in a matter of hours in order to prevent a murder that would also destroy the murderer.

With one battalion of hired hoods following them and another headed their way, the going is rough. It has some pleasant intervals, though. Grofield is handsome and virile, and Ellen is pretty and sexy, and...

The story is great fun, as well as wildly suspenseful. The setting — Mexico City, San Miguel, Acapulco, the rugged and lovely countryside — is colorfully drawn, a brilliant background for a dark crime that must be averted.

We are happy to introduce this first hardbound crime story by Richard Stark. His other mysteries in paperback are well known to a wide public and have received an enthusiastic press.

A seemingly straightforward domestic tragedy leads to something deeper and darker for DCI Vogel and his team in this gripping police procedural.

A man lies dead on the kitchen floor of his comfortable North Devon home, his body punctured by multiple stab wounds. Beside him sits his silent, traumatised wife.

DCI David Vogel reckons he’s seen it all before. A domestic tragedy: an abused wife snaps after years of suffering within a deeply tormented marriage. Then again, as a police officer of long experience, Vogel knows it’s dangerous to rely on assumptions. As his investigations lead him in all sorts of unexpected directions, uncovering a number of shocking secrets in the dead man’s past, Vogel comes to realize that nothing about this case is as straightforward as it seems.

What really happened inside No.11 St Anne’s Avenue? And if Thomas Quinn’s wife didn’t kill him, who did... and why? Vogel is about to embark on the most unusual case of his career.

Steve Retnick is being released from Sing Sing after serving a five year sentence for second degree murder. Steve is an ex-cop who was framed for the killing of a would be union leader and who now has only one objective in life... to exact vengeance against those who framed him.

Before his imprisonment, he was a loving husband, a loyal friend and a model police officer. Now he’s a loose cannon hellbent on seeking revenge without regard for who gets hurt, or even killed, as he pursues his violent, single-minded agenda. East side docks of NYC.

The victim: a businessman missing for thirty years.

The case: impossible to solve. Until now.

A frozen body is discovered in the icy depths of Langjökull glacier, apparently that of a businessman who disappeared thirty years before. At the time, an extensive search and police investigation yielded no results-one of the missing man’s business associates was briefly held in custody, but there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him.

Now the associate is arrested again and Konrád, the retired policeman who originally investigated the disappearance, is called back to reopen the case that has weighed on his mind for decades.

When a woman approaches him with new information that she obtained from her deceased brother, progress can finally be made in solving this long-cold case.