A young widow listened while her two gallant suitors discussed how she would die...

Jack Hollis had finally steeled himself for what had to be done: When a man is threatening your daughter and grandson, when reason can’t stop it, when restraining orders don’t work and the police can’t help, then a father’s choices are limited. David Rakubian was vicious, abusive, powerful, deadly — and Angela’s husband. Everyone Hollis knew, the members of his family, his friends, all wanted to help save Angela. But this was something Jack had to do himself: Failure would be costly; success just as risky. Now he waited across the road from Rakubian’s house, hoping he’d get home quickly, before he lost his nerve.

But Rakubian never got there, and the distraught father came up with another plan, something foolproof. Promising Rakubian a meeting with Angela so they could discuss their problems, he arranged for them to be somewhere isolated, somewhere a body could be easily disposed of, somewhere that would offer a perfect alibi.

But Rakubian never got there, either. And when Hollis finally tracks him down, he discovers that someone may have done his job for him. Now he doesn’t know who to protect: There are too many people who’d wanted to help Angela, too many suspects (including himself); so many people and no one saying a word.

One rainy night, the unthinkable happens: Dylan Moran’s car plunges off the road into a raging river, his beautiful wife drowning as he struggles to shore.In the aftermath, through his grief, Dylan experiences sudden, strange visions: wherever he goes, he’s haunted by glimpses of himself. Dylan initially chalks it up to trauma, but that changes when he runs into a psychiatrist who claims he’s her patient. She says he has been undergoing a unique hypnotherapy treatment built on the idea that with every choice, he creates an infinite number of parallel universes.Now those parallel universes are unlocked — and Dylan’s doppelgänger has staked a claim to his world. Can Dylan use these alternate realities to get a second chance at the life that was stolen from him? Or will he lose himself...  to himself?

In depths of despair, the beautiful, lonely Madeline contemplates suicide. She gently strokes an ugly revolver, the sole legacy of an alcoholic father. Holding the barrel to her temple, she pulls the trigger. There is only the click of the hammer on an empty chamber.The failure of the weapon brings on a rush of joy, and renewed hope for her future. She throws down the gun — and it explodes with deadly fury. The bullet strikes an innocent young woman passing in the street outside, who in the next moment dies in Madeline’s arms.So begins Into the Night, the quintessential Cornell Woolrich novel, never before published. Although Woolrich worked on it for years, this tale of hatred and passion, of love and suspense, remained unfinished at the time of his death. This undiscovered masterpiece has been completed by Lawrence Block — one of today’s most distinguished mystery writers — to create a work which will stand beside Woolrich’s Rear Window, Phantom Lady, and The Bride Wore Black.

In the clammy recesses of the cement stairwell, she discovered the terrifying truth: she was the patsy, and her role was to die — screaming!

CARD-GAMBLING AND LOVE GAMBOLING IN THE CITY OF GAY DIVORCEES

Jane Delavan had dark, red hair and plenty of shape of a nice, refined kind. To Ed Horner she was only a little fancy flirtation under the Nevada moon, but he found some peculiar circumstances developing when Jane’s husband, Tom Delavan, himself came to town, followed very shortly afterwards by his first wife, the beautiful but jealous Lady Sperry.

Ed wondered what kind of game Jane Delavan was playing with him, leading him on as she was? And why should Lady Sperry take a heated interest in him of a sudden? What were the cause of secret midnight callers roaming at will through hotel bedrooms? Suddenly Ed Horner found himself slowly being ringed about by a group of hard-hating, highly emotional people who all had motives that involved them in a case of murder and the JEALOUS WOMAN.

Adding to the fast growing list of James M. Cain novels, JEALOUS WOMAN is fiction that rates high for tight-packed action and a set of colorful, trigger-tense characters — a sure guarantee of the reader’s interest to the final smashing climax.

Realistiškas ir tuo pačiu kupinas paslapties, įtraukiantis Jūsų protą ir jausmus į stulbinanti spėlionių žaidimą. Aukščiausio lygio psichologinis romanas, kuris supina Agathos Christie plunksnos vertą detektyvą ir Stepheno Kingo dramatišką mistiką.

*“Negalėsite padėti šios knygos į šalį.”*

*— San Francisco Chronicle*

OBUOLYS

Knyga nukelia į 1954-uosius — nuošalioje saloje stovinčią psichiatrijos ligoninę, iš kurios ypatingai saugomos kameros ką tik dingo pavojingais nusikaltimais apkaltinta moteris. Užklupus pragaištingai audrai, nelieka ryšio su žemynu, o neįprasta byla dviems ją tirti atvykusiems pareigūnams įgauna dar tamsesnių atspalvių… Kodėl saloje dvigubai daugiau prižiūrėtojų nei pacientų? Kokie paslaptingi eksperimentai vyksta ligoninėje? Kodėl spygliuota viela aptvertas švyturys? Tai, ko gero, geriausias psichologinis detektyvas, kokį esate skaitę.

„Kvepalai. Maži, dideli, spalvoti, matiniai buteliukai ant lentynų. Užtenka pažvelgti į vitriną, jų ten šimtai, bet ar pagalvojom, kad tarp tokios daugybės rūšių, pavadinimų iš tikro nėra genialių kvepalų. Žanas Batistas Genujis vienintelis žinojo, kad tobulų kvepalų nėra ir vienintelis mokėjo juos sukurti. Ir sukūrė, daugybę tobulų kvapų. Gali tapti nepastebimas, mylimas ir nekenčiamiausias pasaulyje, tam tik reikia tinkamų žiedų, žolelių, gal net žmogaus plaukų. Taip, romanas nėra labai švelnus, skaidrus, rožinis, kvepiantis. Taip negali būti, nes parodomas tikras pasaulis. XVIII a. Prancūzija: skurdas, purvas, smarvė, neapykanta, žiaurumas – hiperbolizuojami, tačiau išlaikyta stebėtina pusiausvyra tarp šių bjaurių dalykų ir tobulumo, švarumo, tikrojo grožio.

She was born with the morality gene missing. As beautiful, as inviting, as treacherous as the sea around her, Linda is one of the most compelling women yet created by John D. MacDonald.

Here is the story of a mad love, written against the mysterious background of the underworld. Unlike the ordinary tale of this type with its crude, realistic descriptions, Manhattan Love Song is attuned in style and pace to the exoticism that surrounds and controls the life of Bernice.

Because it is unusual, daring and bizarre this book will impress and delight the reader as few books have done before.

Here are the swift pace, the hard, crisp prose, the almost unbearably tense dramatic situations which are typical of James Cain. But here also are a deeper view of life, a bigger subject, and a group of characters closer to the average reader’s experience than Mr. Cain has ever given us before. Here, in other words, is his most substantial and most ambitious novel.

It is the story of a woman, her daughter, and her two husbands. At twenty- eight she was a “grass widow” without a cent. She learned to work; she created a business and built it into a notable success. Along the way she acquired two lovers, one of whom became her second husband. But none of that was important. What was important was her daughter Veda — the lovely, haughty, greedy, cruel child who knew what she wanted and got it.

The relations between mother and daughter, between mother and husband and lover, between husband and daughter, intermingle and fuse into a shattering climax. Nine years have passed, and in this terrific moment all the characters are at last stripped and revealed, all the motives — good and evil — hared, all the ways of life finally chosen. It is a scene no one will easily forget.

Two teenage boys befriend an escaped bank robber — an act that changes their lives forever — in Moonchasers, a powerful short novel in the tradition of Stand by Me and To Kill a Mockingbird. Tom and Barney are only fifteen years old, and content to spend the summer sharing dime novels, monster movies, and all the other innocent pleasures Somerton, Iowa, has to offer. But when they conspire to shelter a wounded criminal who reminds them of their idol, Robert Mitchum, they set in motion a chilling chain of events that will teach them about trust, brutality, and courage.

Moonchasers and Other Stories also contains several other compelling tales of suspense by Ed Gorman, including “Turn Away,” which won the Shamus Award for best detective story, and a new story that has never appeared in any previous book or collection, “Out There in the Darkness.” These and other stories make up an outstanding collection of fiction by an author who has been described by the San Diego Union as “one of the most distinctive voices in today’s crime fiction.”

The incredible words in the diary stood — clearly accusing: Last night I sharpened the kitchen knives for her. When I finished the largest carving knife she took it and held it so tightly her knuckles showed white. “This is my pet,” she said. “I call it Mr. Killer”.

Joey had read all the psychological thrillers — but he never dreamed he’d get personally involved...

Cornell Woolrich published his first novel in 1926, and through-out the next four decades his fiction riveted the reading public with unparalleled mystery, suspense, and horror. America’s most popular pulps — Dime Detective, Black Mask, and Detective Fiction Weekly — published hundreds of his stories. Classic films like Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black and Mississippi Mermaid, Tournier’s Black Alibi, and Siodmak’s Phantom Lady, as well as dozens of other motion pictures, came chillingly to the screen from his work. And novels like Deadline at Dawn, Rendezvous in Black, and Night Has a Thousand Eyes gained him the epithet “father of noir.”Now, with this new volume — the first in nearly two decades — of previously uncollected suspense fiction by the writer deemed to be the Edgar Allan Poe of the twentieth century, a whole new generation of mystery readers, as well as every one of the countless many who have long read and loved his work, can thrill to the achievement of Cornell Woolrich.“Our poet of the shadows,” as he has been called, Woolrich liveв a life of such deep despair and utter terror that he could do little except spill those fears onto the printed page. Yet he would never rid himself of his dark disquietude Woolrich’s life was, as James Ellroy put it, “a tragic existence that resulted in a superbly sustained fictional output.”Masterfully wrought, these stories of night and fear indelibly translate Woolrich’s personal horror into words.

Here is brilliantly executed narrative of two human beings caught in the terrifying grip of their own hatreds and fears. On an immediate level this is a powerful novel of violence and suspense, but in a more significant area it casts a surgically compassionate light on the most anguishing problems of the human spirit.

The story develops with classic simplicity; two men, strangers but inevitable enemies, meet in the planning of a crime. They violate the laws of society deliberately and gravely; a bank is broken into, a man is killed and the two protagonists are driven to ground in a lonely farmhouse.

One of them is bitter and inarticulate, tormented by his inadequacies and failures. His accomplice, a Negro, is clever but in panic at the thought of death. Do they dare trust one another? Instinct warns them no, and betrayal becomes inevitable. But who will be betrayed is the lesser question; what is betrayed is of paramount importance. There is freedom of the spirit as well as freedom of the body, and a glimmering of this occurs to betrayed and betrayed alike. In the framework of this problem, they are forced to examine their hatred and fear and to reassess themselves as individuals possessing our common humanity.

Rose and Antonia had a good war. As WAAF plotters, they had all the excitement and independence of a difficult and dangerous job, and all the fun of being two women on an RAF base.

Peacetime is a disappointment. There is rationing, shortages, and nothing to do. Rosie’s war-hero husband has turned brutal lout: Antonia, bored with her rich manufacturer, wants to move to America with her lover. Neither can afford a divorce.

But what are plotters for, if not to plot? And Antonia’s ruthless scheme would give them both what they want. If Rosie doesn’t lose her nerve, they could get away with murder...

In the era before he created moody private investigator Matthew Scudder, burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, sleepless spy Evan Tanner, and the amiable hit man Keller — and years before his first Edgar Award — a young writer named Lawrence Block submitted a story titled “You Can’t Lose” to Manhunt magazine. It was published, and the rest is history.

One Night Stands and Lost Weekends is a sterling collection of short crime fiction and suspense novelettes penned between 1958 and 1962 by a budding young master and soon-to-be Grand Master — an essential slice of genre history, and more fun than a high-speed police chase following a bank job gone bad.

He looked at her, at her fine grave face and too elegant gestures. He thought tiredly that this one was nearly gone, that she would go on drinking too much gin and sleeping in too many beds, that she would remember nothing between the beds and the bottles.

The worst of it was that he liked her. She had a face he would remember. And for a long time he would think of her and wonder just what had become of her, whether she was alive or dead...

Here is Cain at his peak, in a new novel that dealt. inevitably, with violent emotions and violent deeds. Here passion and murder are the ingredients of the tale, and what Cain does with them makes this his most terrific adventure in suspense.

The hero is a young Confederate spy in Virginia City, the great mining town, at the height of its boom period. The woman for whom he conceives a wild and desperate infatuation is one of the camp’s sporting girls — in every way a dangerous creature, greedy, conscienceless, and utterly irresistible. The story of his fight to possess her, set against that brawling and turbulent scene, produces another unlaydownable book.

Mr. Cain writes: “I have tried to put real human beings before the reader, to explain, as plausibly as I can, how a gunman got that way, what the prostitute was doing there, why the mine-owner was a bit of a heel, and so on. Also, I have tried to present the life of the time as it was, and as few people nowadays seem to realize it was.”