It was my first day in Paris but the feeling was still with me: like I was getting ready to explode, as if my guts were a lit fuse racing up to my brain.Being cooped up gets me that way, although I was camped in a big room in this swank hotel. Twelve bucks a night and it was the best hotel room I'd ever been in. I'd docked at Le Havre the afternoon before, came straight to this fancy joint from Gare St. Lazare, like they told me to. I had a swell suit of clothes, an expensive big s...

Two crooked cops, a red-hot blonde, and a million in cold cash!

Lead With Your Left, first published in 1957, is a classic hard-boiled crime novel, and follows a young NYPD detective over the course of a week in his hunt for the killer of two retired policemen. Author Ed Lacy (a pseudonym for Leonard Zinberg, 1911-1968) was a prolific writer of pulp crime fiction, and is credited with creating the first believable African-American private eye in American fiction, Toussaint Marcus Moore (in Room to Swing, 1957).Obstreper...

They were grandstand observers, living the free and easy life:Charley Martins, ex-pug turned remittance man, whose apartment was wired against intruders;Pascale, 18, ash-blonde, better looking than Bardot, a sex-kitten who worked in her father’s café and played with Americans only;Gil Fletcher, tall, emotional, a painter in love with Simone;Ed Jones, an ex-loser who, with his Daniele, made a scrubby living as a street photographer.Each of them was ha...

Here was an opportunity he couldn't refuse. One of Lacy's best boxing novels.

I sat there, waiting in this dull Bronx back yard, the gun in my right pocket, safety off. It was simple... wait till he was on top of me, one shot in the heart... then run across the lot to the car. Sid had an ordinary looking heap; nobody would notice it, or the license number. The license number—that was one of the chances I had to take—one of the too-many chances.But this would work, if my luck held out. IF... IF... Damn, I hoped to hell he didn't have a wife and kids, looked t...

She had to buy protection --- and her payment was her body. A hard-boiled crime novel by Ed Lacy.

Two seemingly unconnected men--one a recent winner of a contest and the other a police detective--are both gunned down on the same evening. The widow of one hires Barney Harris, an auto mechanic who does detective work on the side, to sniff out police corruption and find her husband's killer.

The exotic French Riviera forms the backdrop for this tale for four American expats, scraping by and often slipping over the edge to criminal mischief, just to survive. A great read by one of the masters of hardboiled mystery—though this one is decidedly not hardboiled.

He pulled her to him in a fierce, sweaty embrace, and breathed into her parted lips. Set it up for me to see them, honey. Do it for me and I'll... take care of you...The set-up was cash - enough cash to kill for. But something went terribly wrong. And afterwards, blood had to pay for blood.

Two books in one!Murder in Paradise and The Coin of Adventure''What is the meaning of 'whore?''' Ruita asked in Tahitian, anger rising in her voice.I didn't hear an answer because just then a hell of a fracas broke out at the poolside. Ruita and Kitty Merry were rolling on the white sand, punching and clawing at each other. The actress' halter was yanked off and Ruita's blouse was ripped to shreds.I ran over and pulled Ruita to her feet, ...

"This 1958 Edgar Award winner for best novel from Lacy (1911–1968) masterfully combines a classic genre trope with a powerful depiction of the impact of racism in 1950s America."— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review"Though private investigators were the most popular figures in crime writing, especially in the work of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ellery Queen, and Rex Stout, no one had created a Black hard-boiled private eye in a noir setting until Ed ...