I had just begun taking off my jacket when the door quietly opened and two men slipped swiftly into the room. <P> One was Frankie. The other I was seeing for te first time and not liking what I saw. Both were armed. Frankie had changed his his toy for a mansized .38, which he held in his gloved right hand.<P> No one spoke a word. The stranger tilted his gun toward the center of my face. Frankie swung his at the girl on the bed, planted his feet solidly, and fired five times into...
FRAMED!<P> Marcia Carr was dead. Rack Ramsey had loved her–but not enough to be framed for her murder!<P> What part had Marcia played in Bowen's filthy narcotics racket? Why was Sara Colvin so frightened of the suave Blake Bowen? How did Marcia's ten million dollars figure in the strange partnership of gambler Phil Stark and widower Jeff Carr? Puzzling pieces in a fantastic pattern for murder…<P> But over all was Rack's terrifying realization that had he not...
"My guiltiest pleasure is Harry Stephen Keeler. He may been the greatest bad writer America has ever produced. Or perhaps the worst great writer. I do not know. There are few faults you can accuse him of that he is not guilty of. But I love him." – Neil Gaiman<P> It all began with a mysterious black satchel stitched closed with silver wire. Mrs. Matilda Hunter, Jerry Evans’ landlady, finds the satchel and leaves it in his room – and then is heinously murdered. Before long, Jerry...
Texas cowboys Billy Birthday (aka Shortcut) and Wallace F. Fidgle (aka Tapes) are touring Florida to see the lighthouses there. In the midst of a storm, they give a ride to a jogger who turns out to be the governor of Florida. And as soon as they drop him off, he's murdered. Stuck in a hotel on remote Gasparilla Island by the vicious tropical squall, the pair are accused of murder by the Lieutenant Governor, who has them arrested them and begins building a case against them. Meanwhile,...
He was a tall, cleanly attractive young man, the kind you'd like to have for a neighbor. Press the wrong button and he'd mow you down with the ruthlessness of a Sherman tank. His name was Daniel Port. He was a gangster, the brain and spirit behind the machine that milked the dirty pennies from the city. Now Port wanted out. He had a bellyful of corruption, a one-way ticket to New York, and a dark, shining girl to go along with it. The problem was to get there alive, because the one way...
In Castlebay, North Wales, Dick Merrill is on trial, accused of murdering his wife by administering a lethal dose of arsenic. Merrill, good-looking and attractive, is fatally in love with Margot Stone, who's herself already married. Philip Vane, a lawyer whose career was mysteriously ruined, finds himself similarly infatuated with Margot when he becomes personally involved in Merrill's sensational murder trial. A shadowy figure, Vane's participation in the trial is twisted and...
Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #20 features the best in contemporary and classic mystery fiction, with a great linup of crimes and columns. This is a special All Sherlock Holmes Fiction issue! Here are:<BR> Features:<BR> From Watson’s Notebook, by John H. Watson, M. D.<BR> Ask Mrs Hudson, by (Mrs) Martha Hudson<BR> Non Fiction:<BR> Screen of the Crime, by Kim Newman<BR> Sherlock Holmes for Crown and Country, by Dan Andriacco<BR> ...
Jesse Damon has spent most of the last twenty years in prison on a murder conviction. Now paroled, he’s trying to beat the odds and walk the straight-and-narrow with a pair of overactive cops watching him for mistakes. He’s got a one-room apartment, a job working the overnight shift at a factory, and a sometimes girlfriend named Kelly. If he can just stay out of trouble, he may even be able to join the union.<P> But when he pays his last respects to Mrs. Coleman, his foster mother, he...
Have you ever wondered about the clients who came to the front door of 221B Baker Street: whence they derived, how they heard of Holmes, who sent them? This book answers these questions. For, as Watson said: «I have often observed the two advantages that my friend Holmes has over most other private detectives and also the police. One is that it is very rare for him to fail, and the other springs from that. In short, his clients tend to recommend him vigorously to others, and, if they have a new...