Chip, a screenwriter, just wants to cure his writer's block with an impromptu drive to a small town outside of L.A. But his vehicle is smashed within minutes of his arrival,and then he's beaten in his room atop the strange town's only diner. This poignant and moving noir novella will stun you with, not one, but TWO satisfying twist endings worthy of Mickey Spillane. And this is just the first of eight stories included in this collection. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride: Jack...
Two attractive women…one personable man…a gun…a shot…and then black headlines asking red blood for…THE VENUS DEATH BY BEN BENSON <P> Ben Benson’s superb descriptions of the state police at work…and at play…have given all of his mystery novels a unique and buoyant quality of authenticity. The Venus Death is no exception…but here Mr. Benson departs from previous practice to create a vigorous new hero, young state trooper Ralph Lindsey. <P> This is Lindsey’s story from start to...
Everything is bigger in Texas, including the crimes! <P> Join the award-winning Austin Mystery Writers and friends as they explore the dark side of the Lone Star State. These thirteen talented authors penned fourteen tales of cowboys and criminals, girlfriends and grifters, morticians, motel clerks, and even a big, bad wolf! <P> Lone Star Lawless includes stories by the Austin Mystery Writers: Gale Albright, V.P. Chandler, Kaye George, Laura Oles, and Kathy Waller. The friends...
Destined to fulfill an ancient prophecy, the warrior Sargon strode through the gates of Chalsadon – the last refuge of a once-proud empire. Everywhere about him, corruption and pestilence racked the dying city. <P> Every day more of the precious Innerlands fell to the invading hordes of half-men, desperate for blood. Only Sargon, a Barbarian and an Outsider, could stem the slaughter. Only he could wield the deadly golden maul, covered with the dust of centuries. Only he was fated to test...
The Ancient Race of enhanced humans in Damaria has been all but destroyed by a revolt of the New People. The two survivors, Riddle the Poet and his nephew, young King Lute, flee to the City of the Mist. There they and the many other refugees plan to build a great ship to ferry them to safety in the Western Isles, where some of their kin remain. But the evil worm Dinorm, their old enemy, is not finished with them yet. <P>The longest and best-realized of all of Ardath Mayhar's epic...
The ancient, sinister castle located in the isolated Welsh countryside is no mere heap of dead stones. It quivers with an evil life of its own. Sinister powers are reaching through the castle gateway from somewhere out beyond–evil, menacing Old Gods that had once been thrust out of the world, but now clamor to return. The stranger who appears at the nearby farm on the hillside isn't coming to fulfill Nora’s romantic dreams–he's got his own part to play in the recall of those Dark Ones....
Russ Farran has a plush mansion and millions stashed away in the bank, all garnered from his 1950s Los Angeles aeronautics empire. But that empire is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, due to a series of persistent labor strikes that seem to be provoked by agitators. Then he encounters an old friend, a private investigator, lying next to his desk with a neat, blue-rimmed hole in his head. The cops and the feds both think that Farran did it. The industrialist finds that that his millions...
The murder of Carlos Galecci, a kingpin of organized crime, was not unexpected. Only three days earlier, fearing for his life, he'd hired Los Angeles private eye Johnny Merak to discover who was threatening him. Then he's found seated in his private vault with a knife in his back–a vault whose combination only he knows, a vault no one else has entered in the interim. Summoned to the scene, Merak is hired by Gloria, Galecci’s statuesque blonde wife, to discover her husband's...
Mike Lantry, the tough, hard-bitten chief of World Wide Investigations, is on his way back to New York after a restful vacation when he gives a ride to a lone girl on an Indiana highway. Lantry's up to his neck in from that moment on, coming into contact with gun-wielding hoodlums and crooked cops and the head of the Mafia in the Midwestern United States. When he joins forces with plucky Joanne Kilvert to pull down a crook's empire, he embarks on a tense chase in which, for every inch...
Tyrnos needs no armies, no police, no enforcers, for it has its Soul-Singers. These carefully trained and strongly talented people travel the country, showing the truth of their souls to nobles and commons alike, often resulting in the removal or reform of those needing it. Yeleeve, newly sent forth from the School for Singers, encounters, early in her journey, disturbing indications that something is seriously wrong in Tyrnos. Finding along her way such allies as Lisaux of the Black Shield and...