Toddy Kent was born with a gizmo in his head -- a taient for finding the easy money -- but Toddy's gift has the habit of deserting him when he needs it most. When he discovers a seemingly limitless (a
In his characteristic style, Jim Thompson creates a world in which nothing is as it seems. With her stunning beauty and overwhelming charm, Manuela Aloe seemed like perfect girlfriend material, but wh
Mitch Corley has a girlfriend with expensive tastes and a ruthless wife who refuses to become an "ex" without major compensation. He needs big money and he needs it fast. Which makes
An underaged bellboy thrust into an awful intimacy with grown-up vice. An alcoholic writer trying to postpone a crack-up just long enough to finish his next book. A wildly dysfunctional Okie family fl
Old Lincoln Fargo has spent his life engaging in almost every vice imaginable--and his only regret is that he once stole a horse. His son Grant, a shiftless dandy with a resemblance to Edgar Allan Poe
The place is a frontier boom town where the graft gets collected more regularly than the trash. The hero is Bugs McKenna, slow-witted, hot-tempered man with manslaughter in his past and much worse in
William Collins is very handsome, very polite, and very friendly. His is also dangerous when aroused. Now Collins, a one-time boxer with a lethal "accident" in his past, has broken o
Luane Devore's days are numbered. All her neighbors in the declining seaside resort town of Manduwoc want her dead. Some, like her young husband Ralph and his girlfriend Danny, want the thousands of d
Dr. Peter S. Murphy runs a clinic to cure alcoholics. But his charges believe that the only thing that will fix them is another drink. To this bitter struggle of wills, add an orderly who doubles as a
Pat Cosgrove was a convict in the state's vilest prison, and Doc Luther gave him his freedom. Cosgrove had never been loved, and Luther gave him two mistresses--one of them the beautiful Mrs. Luther.
When Joe Wilmot and his wife, Elizabeth, can no longer stand to live together after ten years of marriage, they concoct a scheme that will allow them to go their separate ways without legal complicati
The questions, discussion topics, and author biography that follow are designed to enhance your reading of this outstanding selection from the 'hard-boiled' school of crime writing: The Killer Inside
As high sheriff of Potts County, Nick Corey spends most of his time eating, sleeping and avoiding trouble. If only people--especially some troublesome pimps, his foul-tempered wife, and his half-witte
Young, beautiful, and fearfully abused, Mona was the kind of girl even a hard man like Dillon couldn't bring himself to use. But when Mona told him about the vicious aunt who had turned her into somet
Doc McCoy knows everything there is to know about pulling off the perfect bank job. But there are some things he has forgotten--such as a partner who is not only treacherous but insane and a wife who
