One of the most unusual hard-boiled novels, this story traces the efforts of the brutally effective bank robber in Dan Marlowe's The Name of the Game is Death to recover from devastating fire damage to his face and resume his career. One Endless Hour begins with a summary of the end of The Name of the Game is Death, but quickly moves on to a tale that is both peculiar and nerve-wracking. The protagonist, who calls himself Earl Drake, hooks up with a gambling addict named Preacher Harris an...

A rarely-published hard-boiled classic, The Name of the Game is Death is the story of a bloody-minded bank robber who mercilessly tracks down the killers of his partner and does them in. The end of the book carries such impact that horror writer Stephen King, a fan of hard-boiled fiction, said it stayed in his mind for decades. Dan J. Marlowe (1914-1986), the author of The Name of the Game is Death, was widely praised in his day, but never achieved breakthrough status as a writer because h...

In this hard-edged thriller, Jim Wilson is a rough-and-tumble road contractor in Moline, South Carolina, a corrupt place where only the most savage survive. Wilson makes no apologies for his ferocity. Raised by an uncle who regularly whipped him, used to taking beatings until he learned to fight back, Wilson lets no-one take advantage of him. After revenging himself on his cheating wife, he takes up with her best friend, an ambitious woman whose ability to connive and manipulate are more t...

Hard hitting crime and pulp detective tale.

Johnny had a passkey to all the doors in the hotel, but this time, he found murder --- and worse!

The Kingdom of Killain -- that's the Duarte, a big-city hotel at the crossroads of the world. The grifters, tough lads, girls on the make -- all learn to stay away from Hotel Duarte because Johnny Killain's in charge there. That's his turf -- a flick of his fist makes broken guys and dolls. So Johnny patrolled the dark corridors in peace...until the night he rounded a bend and looked murder square in the eye. The blonde lay on the bed in 609, her face a puffed, blue, strangled horror. Her ...

In "A Bullet for Cinderella" by John D. MacDonald, ex-soldier Tal Howard embarks on a gripping quest to uncover hidden treasure and lost love in a small town shrouded in secrets and deception. As he navigates a maze of greed, betrayal, and moral ambiguity, Tal's pursuit becomes a dangerous game where the stakes are life and death. This riveting tale explores themes of redemption, the corrupting power of greed, and the search for meaning in a post-war world. MacDonald's masterful storytelli...

A gunman on the run, a seventeen-year-old girl on a family vacation, a jaded working girl, a guilt-stricken widower, an abandoned mistress. All heading fast down a route to sudden death. Then for one horrifying instant their lives are frozen in time, when a Cadillac drives at speed into oncoming traffic.Lives are lost, and those that survive must endure a violent sequence of events that ensure life will never be the same again - for any of them.

From a beloved master of crime fiction, The Lonely Silver Rain is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat.Travis McGee has luck to thank for his reputation as a first-rate salvager of stolen boats. Now Billy Ingraham, a self-made tycoon, is betting that McGee can locate his $700,000 custom cruiser. McGee isn’t so sure. He knows all too well the dangerous link between Florida boatjackings and the...

When Travis McGee's friend Meyer lent his boat to his niece Norma, and her new husband Even, the boat exploded out in the waters of the Florida Keys. Travis McGee thinks it's no accident, and clues lead him to ponder possibilities of drugs and also to wonder where Evan was when his wife was killed...."Proves again that MacDonald keeps getting better with each new adventure."THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Leo Rice seems like a nice enough guy, but why does he have to choose their beach? He could head ten miles up the Florida strip and everyone could just live happily ever after - no questions asked.But Leo Rice does ask questions ... and suddenly Stebbins' Marina, an oasis of easy living, hard drinking and free love for its residents, is in jeopardy. And in less than a month, their paradise will be interrupted by twisted emotions, buried hatred - and brutal murder....

Stoner is a private eye in the classic tradition: a loner with a history of failed relationships with women and all-too-successful relationships with bottles of scotch. He's unable to look away from the world's corruption—and unable to avoid trying to do something about it. His latest hopeless cause is Cindy Ann, a teenage hooker. She's not very pretty or bright or engaging … she doesn't have much to offer at all. So when she disappears, it's all the more disturbing for Stoner—who knows wh...