He'd been a promising piano prodigy, once. Now he was just an addict, scraping to get by, letting his hunger for drugs consume him. But a man's life can always get worse - as Ray Stone discovers when he wakes up beside a beautiful nightclub singer only to find her dead... and 16 ounces of pure heroin missing. On the run from the law, desperate to prove his innocence and find a killer, Ray also faces another foe, merciless and unforgiving: his growing craving for a fix...

Robbing the cars is Jobbo's idea. Frankie just goes along because it's too hot to do anything else, and he can't resist easy money. They walk along the East River, reaching into open windows and taking whatever they find. Mostly, it's just junk, until Jobbo picks up the .45. It's fully loaded, with the safety off, and Frankie is holding it when the cops come around the corner. The police open fire, and Frankie shoots back. What else is he supposed to do? Before he knows it, both cops are d...

On his lunch break, David, a mild-mannered therapist, takes a walk in Central Park. It's a muggy June day, and the park is a respite from the parade of neurotics who keep him in business. A woman passes on a bicycle and tosses him a cheerful greeting. A few seconds later, David hears her scream. A mugger has knocked her to the ground, punched her in the face, and escaped with the bike. David helps the girl up. She's beautiful, grateful . . . and far more dangerous than she looks. A Broadwa...

When Claire Cole meets a sailor at the hospital, he's just another enlisted man in need of her care . . . until he mistakes a nurse's compassion for true love, and a few dates as the beginning of a grand romance. But then Claire visits the USS Sykes to tell him that it's over, and something in him snaps. He curses. He begs. And when that doesn't work, he gets angry, wrapping his hands around her throat and squeezing until he sees the life leave her eyes. The nurse's death sends a shockwave...

Johnny Lane is outside the Apollo when he sees Luis, and rage floods his veins. Every tough in Harlem knows that Luis tried to rape Johnny's girl, and that means he has to die. Johnny comes out swinging, but Luis is wearing brass knuckles, and he almost kills Johnny before the fight gets broken up. A few weeks later, as a brutal winter settles over New York, Johnny is walking down the street when he hears the gunfire. Luis has been shot dead. Johnny runs without thinking, because it's bad ...

Phil Colby is just cruising into Sullivan's Corners when the motorcycle cop flags him down. Phil isn't worried;he wasn't speeding, and as a city cop on holiday in a neighboring state, he expects a certain amount of understanding. But the local cop is unimpressed by his brother in blue, and he doesn't buy the story that he borrowed the car from a fellow detective. He drags Phil in for questioning, and a relaxing vacation becomes a nightmare. When Phil and his fiancée, Ann Grafton, finally g...

For the first time since their daughter was born, Zachary and Mary Blake are taking a trip alone, calling it it their second honeymoon. After months of vicious infighting at his broadcasting job, Zach is looking forward to a relaxing vacation on Martha's Vineyard, a paradise untouched by time. But the respite won't last for long. When Mary's body is discovered, the coroner deems it accidental drowning, but Zach can't accept that. One year later, he returns to the island to find proof that ...

After an intense heat wave, storms threaten to blanket New York City, and three boys walk across town with knives in their pockets and murder on their minds. They're tough kids in combat boots, crossing into Spanish Harlem to pick a fight. And when they see one of their intended victims, they surround him, draw their knives, and plunge their weapons into the poor boy's gut. The attackers flee, and blood pours down the victim's lifeless body, mingling with the sudden rain. But despite the s...

The call comes from Narcotics, Manhattan South. A low-level drug dealer just got caught in a buy-bust, and he's ready to spill his guts. It wouldn't be a priority—especially not four days before Christmas—but the thug just mentioned the Mafia, and that means all hands on deck. It's just what Michael Welles has been waiting for. An assistant district attorney with a burning hatred of organized crime, he'll do anything for a crack at the mob. He's about to get a chance to bring down the whol...

Andrew Mullaney has the money to get to Aqueduct Racetrack, but nothing to bet once he gets there. It's a tragedy, because today he's got a sure thing: a filly named Jawbone who's guaranteed to win. Desperate, Andrew asks every hood he knows to spot him fifty bucks, tapping chess hustlers, pool sharks, and hoodlums of every stripe, until, finally, he asks the wrong man—who responds by tossing Andrew out the door and down a flight of stairs. For this degenerate gambler, life is hard . . . a...

When a man's partner is killed he's supposed to do something about it. Maybe no one liked Del Gilbert, not the men he did business with, not the women who discovered his other lovers, not even his partner in the Gilbert and Blake literary agency - me. But when I found him shot to death on the floor of his office, I had no choice. I had to track down the person responsible. And not just to lay Del to rest, either. The office safe was open, and a contract worth millions was missing...

Detective Matt Cordell was happily married once, and gainfully employed, and sober. But that was before he caught his wife cheating on him with one of his operatives and took it out on the man with the butt end of a .45. Now Matt makes his home on the streets of New York and his only companions are the city's bartenders. But trouble still knows how to find him, and when Johnny Bridges shows up from the old neighborhood, begging for Matt's help, Cordell finds himself drawn into a case full ...