CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - F IS FOR..... FLORIDA, FRANCIS, FLOATERS

F is for .....

Florida which is a setting I like reading about, especially in the hands of either Carl Hiaasen or James W. Hall.

Other notables - John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series, Randy Wayne White and Doc Ford and Elmore Leonard set a few of his here...... Maximum Bob and Rum Punch spring to mind.

One of my earliest crime fiction reads was Carl Hiaasen's Tourist Season either late 80s or early 90s























Take a trip to exotic South Florida with this dark, funny book that established Carl Hiaasen as one of the top mystery writers in the game.


The first sign of trouble is a Shriner's fez washed up on a Miami beach. The next is a suitcase containing the almost-legless body of the local chamber of commerce president found floating in a canal...


The locals are desperate to keep the murders under wraps and the tourist money flowing. But it will take a reporter-turned-private eye to make sense of a caper that mixes football players, politicians, and one very hungry crocodile in this classic mystery that GQ called "one of the top ten destination reads of all time."



James W. Hall has written over a dozen books in his Thorn PI series. He's another author I discovered around the same time as Hiaasen

The first Thorn mystery from Edgar Award–winning author James W. Hall: a story of revenge in the Florida Keys that “starts good and stays good, right to the end” (Chicago Tribune).

Thorn’s parents died the day he was born, run off the road by a drunk driver on their way back from the hospital. The baby lived, the offender beat the rap, and both went on with their lives—until nineteen years later, when Thorn took revenge, hunting down his parents’ killer and taking his life in a vain attempt to bring back those who had been lost. Two decades later, Thorn remains scarred by his crime. He lives in Key West, selling fishing flies and keeping an eye on Kate Truman, the woman who adopted him. But now he has lost her, too, to a pair of brutal murderers whom the police have no hope of tracking down. Thorn knows the Keys, and he will find them—but before he can take revenge, he must confront the horror of the first time he killed.

The first in the series featuring Thorn, who “may remind you of John D. MacDonald’s immortal Travis McGee . . . or perhaps Lee Child’s Jack Reacher” (TheWashington Post Book World), this intense thriller is filled with both danger and emotional depth. Elmore Leonard has called James W. Hall’s debut novel “a beauty.”


F is for .....

Dick Francis, who wrote about a gazillion novels all primarily set in the world of horse racing. I've only read a couple so far  - Dead Cert and Forfeit - but have more than a few on the pile.

Odds Against is the first of four books featuring Sid Halley and was originally published in 1965.

A classic mystery from Dick Francis, the champion of English storytellers.

Champion jockey Sid Halley retired from racing when his hand was smashed in a fall. Now he works as a private detective - which is proving to be no less dangerous to life and limb.

Recuperating from a bullet wound, Sid is asked by his father-in-law to look into some potentially shady activity involving Seabury racecourse and a ruthless property dealer.

But the closer Sid gets to those determined to get their hands on Seabury, the more he finds himself in harm's way. The odds are against him - but that's exactly when Sid is at his best...


F is for.....

Floaters by Joseph Wambaugh

Harbor cops Fortney and Leeds have a good time patrolling San Diego’s Mission Bay, scoping out body-sculpted beauties on pleasure craft, rescuing boating bozos who’ve run aground, and hauling in the occasional floater.


But now their days are anything but typical, for the America’s Cup regattas have come to town and San Diego swarms with sailors, schemers, spies, and saboteurs,and the cuppies who want to love them. It’s a randy cuppie named Blaze who tweaks their cop instincts that something’s not quite right on the waterfront—and it’s Blaze who sets off a bizarre criminal trail that would be hilarious if it didn’t wind up just as nasty as it gets, with a pair of murders right on the eve of the biggest sailing race of all.


Previous entries

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - A IS FOR.... AX, ABBOTT, ABERDEEN

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - B IS FOR ....... BOSTON, BIRD, BONES

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - C IS FOR.........CAPE TOWN, CONFIDENCE MEN, CROSS

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - D IS FOR ....... DETROIT, DISHER, DEAD

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - E IS FOR ....... EDINBURGH, EXCESS, ELLIS

2 BY FRED WILLARD

A couple from the depths of the library and Fred Willard. Neither of which I've read and both of which were published about twenty years ago.

Whores, hustlers, murder, con games, jailbreaks and a lot more.....my kind of books.





















Willard is an American comedian, actor and writer.

Multi-talented obviously, I'm glad he's not prolific as an author. I can't see that he has any more fiction published in the last twenty years, which means I've a good chance of catching up with his work.

* UPDATE - Lee Goldberg a man who knows, informs me that the author of the books is not the actor and comedian of some renown, but a different guy - a journalist from Atlanta. 
Apologies for the fake news!

Down on Ponce (1997)

In Atlanta, Georgia, Ponce De Leon Avenue is a street full of whores, hustlers and hiding places. Sam takes against a malign yuppy who offers him money to kill his wife, and takes the money, and warns the wife. When she, the yuppy and the man Sam got to look after his trailer all end up dead, Sam feels in an abstract way that someone ought to pay, and killing people is nowhere near as satisfactory as taking away their money. He assembles a gang--his favourite psychopath, two crippled down-and-outs and a rockabilly undertaker--and poses as the man from the Columbian cartels. And then the plot begins to get seriously complicated...Fred Willard's bleakly funny first novel has a tone of voice as vigorous as its action sequences, a sense of location and milieu as sharp as its plotting. The planning and execution of jailbreaks and hijackings are ingenious and plausible; more unusually, they are carried out in inventive ways which have as much to do with the characters of Willard's charming foul-mouthed criminals as they do with mere practicality. Crime novels come no more hard-boiled than this. --Roz Kaveney


Princess Naughty and the Voodoo Cadillac (2000)

Drummed out of the post-Cold War CIA, Bill Schiller needs a little scratch to ease him into retirement on some warm, remote island. He's already got his stool, filthy rich Atlantan Johnny McClendon who would love nothing better than to prove himself a true patriot. All Schiller needs to do is arrange a couple of simple transfers and blow off a few major players.

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - E IS FOR..... EDINBURGH, EXCESS, ELLIS

E is for Edinburgh.......

Scotland's capital and the home of Ian Rankin's Rebus which isn't a series I have ever really got stuck into. (There's still time for me!)

20 plus books long - Knots and Crosses was the first in 1987

Once John Rebus was a Para, served in the elite SAS. Now he's an Edinburgh policeman who spends time evading his memories, missing promotion opportunities, and right now ignoring a series of crank letters. But as the murders go on happening right under his nose, Rebus cannot ignore the presence of a serial killer stalking the city streets any longer. He isn't the only detective working the case, but he is the only one with all the pieces to the puzzle and those letters keep on coming.

E is for Excess......

Victor Headley's 1993 sequel to Yardie























Things got really hot after D's arrest. The police virtually closed down Hackney for business. But the shaky truce that followed the posse's turf war, is getting shakier as Sticks dips deeper into his own supply of crack. This book is the sequel to "Yardie".


E is for Ellis.....

Warren or Ron? 

Both

Warren Ellis - Gun Machine (2013)

Warren Ellis reimagines New York City as a puzzle with the most dangerous pieces of all: guns.

After a shootout claims the life of his partner in a condemned tenement building on Pearl Street, Detective John Tallow unwittingly stumbles across an apartment stacked high with guns. When examined, each weapon leads to a different, previously unsolved murder. Someone has been killing people for 20 years or more and storing the weapons together for some inexplicable purpose.

Confronted with the sudden emergence of hundreds of unsolved homicides, Tallow soon discovers that he's walked into a veritable deal with the devil. An unholy bargain that has made possible the rise of some of Manhattan's most prominent captains of industry. A hunter who performs his deadly acts as a sacrifice to the old gods of Manhattan, who may, quite simply, be the most prolific murderer in New York City's history.


Warren Ellis's body of work has been championed by Wired for its "merciless action" and "incorruptible bravery", and steadily amassed legions of diehard fans. His newest audiobook builds on his accomplishments like never before, announcing Ellis as one of today's most daring thriller writers. This is 21st-century suspense writ large. This is Gun Machine.

























The Singing Dead is the 4th in the Johnny Ace series. Ace is a scouse PI, I think. I've not read either of the two I have in the series.


Liverpool DJ Johnny Ace finds himself sitting on a potential goldmine when he, by accident, buys a tape containing unreleased songs performed by John Lennon. However, his excitement soon fades when he finds out that the previous owner's house has been violently ransacked. As Johnny investigates his first two cases at the newly opened Ace Investigations office, the shocking discovery of a murdered body points him in the right direction. The unlucky victim is the tape's previous owner and it soon becomes apparent that the two cases are somehow linked by a very violent criminal. A criminal who could well be after him next...


Previous entries

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - A IS FOR.... AX, ABBOTT, ABERDEEN

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - B IS FOR ....... BOSTON, BIRD, BONES

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - C IS FOR.........CAPE TOWN, CONFIDENCE MEN, CROSS

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - D IS FOR ....... DETROIT, DISHER, DEAD

2 BY CELIA FREMLIN

A couple from Celia Fremlin, an author who until a bit of Oxfam charity shop browsing recently, I had never heard of.

Fremlin won an Edgar for The Hours Before Dawn and has been described as Britain's Patricia Highsmith. 

In all she had 16 novels published between 1958 and 1994. She died in 2009.

The Hours Before Dawn (1958)

Winner of the 1960 Edgar Award for best mystery novel

'A lost masterpiece.' PETER SWANSON

'A flawless masterclass in tension from the talented Ms Fremlin.' SARAH HILARY

Louise would give anything - anything - for a good night's sleep. Forget the girls running errant in the garden and bothering the neighbours. Forget her husband who seems oblivious to it all. If the baby would just stop crying, everything would be fine.

Or would it? What if Louise's growing fears about the family's new lodger, who seems to share all of her husband's interests, are real? What could she do, and would anyone even believe her? Maybe, if she could get just get some rest, she'd be able to think straight.

In a new edition of this lost classic, The Hours Before Dawn proves - scarily - as relevant to readers today as it was when Celia Fremlin first wrote it in the 1950s.

The Long Shadow (1975)

Jolted from sleep by the ringing of the telephone, Imogen fumbles through the dark, empty house to answer it. At first, she can't quite understand the man on the other end of the line. Surely he can't honestly be accusing her of killing her husband. Ivor died in a car crash two months ago - she may not be adjusting to widowhood very well, but Imogen certainly didn't murder him.

As the nights draw in, Imogen finds her home filling up with unexpected Christmas guests - but they may be looking for more than just holiday cheer. Has someone been rifling through Ivor's papers? Who left the half-drunk whiskey bottle beside his favourite chair? And why won't that man stop phoning Imogen, insisting he can prove her guilt?

DAVE WARNER - EXXXPRESSO (2000)

Synopsis/blurb.....

Rick pulled a folded glossy brochure from his pocket and spread it out. Every time he looked at it, his heart just welled up with joy. It was the Ferrari of espresso machines. Eight cups delivered simultaneously, milk frothed with four times the power of a standard machine...

Rick has his Milano but no wife. His wife Marietta has a lover but no money. Zeen has a life expectancy as short as her skirt. And Guthrie has just shot a pizza delivery boy. Soon Rick has no choice but to drive that Highway to Hell... or Kalgoorlie anyway.

In the richest square mile of dirt in the world a state-of-the-art espresso machine will determine the fate of a bunch of triple-crossing desperados.

"You're right into your coffee man, I'll give you that."
Rick brushed that away. "For me, coffee is a business."

First book of the month finished on the 20th and while it took a while to get through it wasn't because I didn't enjoy the story being told, more my reading mojo had departed for places elsewhere. I tried a few other books to bump start the process but without any success.

An ex-con, a coffee machine and a dream - Rick Boski when he gets out of jail is going to open a coffee shop and make his fortune. Unfortunately in his way is an ex-wife, with a kick-boxing boyfriend, a money lending crim, a pick pocketing hottie turned confidence woman, a big of cash, some missing gold and an assortment of other bad guys, friends and acquaintances. All he needs to overcome is a road trip to Kalgoorlie, with hospital trips, baseball bats, a car accident with a kangaroo, rip offs, kidnaps, guns, religious experiences, drugs, distrust, deceit, double crosses, a heart attack, a fatal accident and a bit more besides.

Humourous undertones to proceedings, plenty of twists as at times Rick our main man seems to be on top of the situation before getting blind-sided by another of the combatants. He's an easy guy to root for, despite his criminal past which is more a tale of misfortune than any desire to live an outlaw lifestyle. If he has a flaw, it's that he's too easy going and trusting with a weakness for a pretty girl that he immediately wants to fall in love with. He does demonstrate a determination and a level of resilience and intelligence to fight for what he wants here.

Overall it's an enjoyable tale of one man's dream and ambition getting sideswiped and thrown off-track by his involvement with a shady money lender and his subsequent efforts to fulfil his destiny. I probably could have done with it being about a 100 pages shorter, though maybe if my reading mood had been more agreeable I may not have noticed the length and it would have flown by.

Interesting cast of characters, enjoyable Australian setting, satisfying outcome. Not one I'd care to re-read or press into the hands of others but more to like than dislike.

3 from 5

Dave Warner has been read before - City of Light (1995) - back in 2016. 
A few more from him sit on the pile, including the 2016 Ned Kelly Award winner Before it Breaks.

Read - December, 2019
Published - 2000
Page count - 384
Source - purchased copy direct from the author
Format - paperback

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - D IS FOR ....... DETROIT, DISHER, DEAD

D is for Detroit.......

A bit of choice - Elmore Leonard with a few to choose from - City Primeval, 52 Pick-up; Loren D. Estleman and his Amos Walker series, or Bill Morris and Motor City Burning 

Bill Morris - Motor City Burning (2014)

I've not read Bill Morris yet, but this one piques my interest..... 60s, Civil Rights, Vietnam and gun running......


From the critically acclaimed author of Motor City, Detroit comes alive in a powerful and thrilling novel set amid the chaos of the 1960s race riots and the serenity of baseball's opening day.

Willie Bledsoe, once an idealistic young black activist, is now a burnt-out case. After leaving a snug berth at Tuskegee Institute to join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he has become bitterly disillusioned with the civil rights movement and its leaders. He returns home to Alabama to try to write a memoir about his time in the cultural whirlwind, but the words fail to come.

The surprise return of his Vietnam veteran brother in the spring of 1967 gives Willie a chance to drive a load of smuggled guns to the Motor City - and make enough money to jump-start his stalled dream of writing his memoir. There, at Tiger Stadium on Opening Day of the 1968 baseball season - postponed two days in deference to the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. - Willie learns some terrifying news: the Detroit police are still investigating the last unsolved murder from the bloody, apocalyptic riot of the previous summer, and a white cop named Frank Doyle will not rest until the case is solved. And Willie is his prime suspect.


Bill Morris' rich and thrilling novel sets Doyle's hunt amid the history of one of America's most tortured and fascinating cities, as Doyle and Willie struggle with Detroit's deep racial divide, with revenge and forgiveness, and with the realization that justice is rarely attainable - and rarely just.


D is for.....

Garry Disher, top banana Aussie author with a couple of series under his belt - one with cops, one with a professional criminal, and a whole host of stand-alones.....

Garry Disher - Kickback (1991)

Kickback is the first of nine Wyatt books to date....

Professional, methodical and only slightly sentimental, Wyatt is a flinty poem of a criminal and one of the most memorable creations in modern Australian literature.

Wyatt plans to hit a suburban law firm for the settlement money in its safe. But he’s working with cowboys, and the lawyer planning to rip off her boss is a little too mysterious for his comfort. Wyatt’s as good as they come, but everything needs to go like clockwork—and you can’t always plan around human frailty.

This is the perfect introduction to an exquisite series: hard-boiled Melbourne in the time of video rentals and answering machines, paper money, Datsuns and Customlines. It’s as sinewy and efficient as Wyatt himself, superbly crafted and relentlessly tense. And it gets even better from here.

In 2000, Kickback won the international section of the Deutscher Krimi Preis, the oldest and most prestigious German literary prize for crime fiction.

Garry Disher - The Dragon Man (1999)

The Dragon Man is the first of seven in his Peninsula Crimes series

"Engaging and appealingly complex."-Canberra Times

"Pace and tautness . . . Evocative landscapes-characters develop complexity and lodge in the consciousness."-Weekend Australian

"Disher writes a mean crime thriller."-The Age

A serial killer is on the loose in a small coastal town near Melbourne. Detective Inspector Hal Challis and his team must apprehend him before he strikes again. But first Challis must contend with the editor of a local news-paper who undermines his investigation at every turn and with his wife, who is attempting to resurrect their marriage through long-distance phone calls from a sanitarium where she has been imprisoned for the past eight years for attempted murder. His.


The media is demanding to know what Challis is doing about the killer; his colleagues are either giving trouble or in it; and his past keeps coming back to haunt him. Can Challis and his team nab the Peninsula Highway killer before anyone else gets hurt?


D is for.....

Dead ........ Boys, Birds, Babies, Bodies, Calm, Folks, Gorgeous, Letters, Lions etc

Peter James - Dead Simple (2005)

Dead Simple is the first in the Roy Grace series.....

It was meant to be a harmless stag night prank. A few hours later four of his best friends are dead, and Michael Harrison has disappeared. With only three days to the wedding, Detective Superintendent Grace - a man haunted by the shadow of his own missing wife - is contacted by Michael's beautiful, distraught fiancee, Ashley Harper. Grace discovers that the one man who ought to know Michael Harrison's whereabouts is saying nothing. But then he has a lot to gain - more than anyone realizes. For one man's disaster is another man's fortune ...


Earlier entries

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - A IS FOR.... AX, ABBOTT, ABERDEEN

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - B IS FOR ....... BOSTON, BIRD, BONES

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - C IS FOR.........CAPE TOWN, CONFIDENCE MEN, CROSS

2 BY NICK OLDHAM

A couple of books from another well regarded British author who I have yet to read - Nick Oldham.

Oldham has written about 25 books in his Henry Christie series - police procedurals I'm pretty sure with a North West England setting. I have a couple of them on the shelves but I think embarking on another 20+ book long series, might be a tad optimistic given the size of the TBR pile already.

In addition to the Christie books, he has written another short series and has a couple of standalones available.

His standalones are the featured books....

East-end villains, revenge, vigilantes and criminal gangs.... my kind of reading!


Vendetta (2013)

A novelisation from the movie

George never meant to kill the thief - he was just defending his shop from the jacked up kids trying to rob him. Break the kid's jaw maybe, but not kill him. Later the doorbell rings and in revenge the gang swarm into George's house, beat him senseless, rape his wife, tie them up and set fire to them.

It isn't long before Jimmy Vickers, George's son, is on the trail of the gang who murdered his parents, exacting his own kind of chillingly brutal justice. Jimmy is an interrogation specialist for the military in Afghanistan who knows more than he should. With the police closing in and his own regiment also determined to stop him, the body count mounts up. Jimmy creates a media frenzy - London's first vigilante of the 21st Century - but will his devastating course of action spell the end for the woman he loves?

We Still Kill the Old Way (2014)

Sometimes the old way is the only way...

When a retired East End villain is murdered by a feral street gang, his brother Ritchie Archer returns to London from Spain to investigate. With the police thwarted at every turn, Ritchie decides to take the law into his own hands and bring old school justice back to the streets of East London. Rounding up his old firm, he leads a vigilante crusade against the vicious young criminals, using every grisly method at his disposal to find and punish his brother's killers. A vicious street war follows, with no prisoners taken on either side, leading to a dramatic conclusion as the feral youths lay siege to a hospital Ritchie's firm is holed up in.

They're outgunned and outnumbered, but this firm has never been outclassed yet.

LOGGING THE LIBRARY - PART EIGHTY-SIX

After a two years plus hiatus when the books were placed into storage while an on-off, on-on house move eventually happened, I thought I'd try and complete the exercise that I started back in October, 2014 - namely cataloguing my books, so whenever the fancy takes me I can lay my hands on what I want to read.

In the old house the collection was in the attic. In the new they're in the integral garage-cum-man cave.

My first post was  LOGGING THE LIBRARY - PART ONE

My last post was in October, 2016 and I'd got as far as EIGHTY-FIVE

So Tub 86 in all it's glory....

Pre-logging look!

Sandi Wallace, Donald E. Westlake, Alan Carter, Steve Cavanagh, Bill Pronzini

Australian short stories from Sandi Wallace - On the Job (2017)

The highs and lows of cops on the job. The cases that make them, break them, bring them laughs, maybe even love.

Police on the beat, working one-officer shops, and seasoned detectives pursue a cunning home intruder, a full-moon prankster, false friends, vengeful partners.

Adrenaline-charged car chases, unsanctioned surveillance, intense interrogation. The impact of a child’s tragic death. The import of unearthing what happened to an infant and her mother. Lives saved and crooks captured.

This gripping collection of Sandi Wallace’s award-winning short fiction—“Busted”, “Silk Versus Sierra” and “Losing Heidi”—along with new and never-before released verse and stories, includes “Impact”, a finalist in the international Cutthroat Rick DeMarinis Short Story Contest.

Bill Pronzini - Zigzag (2016) Nameless PI series book

Two novellas and two short stories featuring Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Bill Pronzini's iconic Nameless Detective!

Zigzag is an original novella, in which a safe and simple accident investigation becomes the unraveling of a twisted murder scheme.

Grapplin, which first appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, deals with the kind of missing person case that can end in only one of two ways, closure or heartbreak.

In the second short, Nightscape, readers discover how, indeed, one thing just leads to another (First published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine as The Winning Ticket).

The final work, Revenant, is another original novella and entangles Nameless in a weird crime with fearful occult overtones.

Elmore Leonard, Johnny Shaw, Neil Broadfoot, Frank Bill, Jeffrey Frye,

Johnny Shaw - The Upper Hand (2018)

From Johnny Shaw, the Anthony Award–winning author of Big Maria, comes a wild tale about the wonderful things that bring a family together—larceny, deception, and revenge.

Fifteen years ago, Axel, Gretchen, and Kurt Ucker lost their father. At the same time, they learned that he had secretly been a thief their whole lives—and left a fortune unaccounted for. Since then, the Uckers have lived a precarious existence. Their small town shunned and shamed them. Their mother, Bertha, retreated into her religion and her favorite televangelist, Brother Tobin Floom. Axel got a dead-end job. Gretchen turned to petty crime. And Kurt stayed with his mom and his garage band.

When Bertha dies, she leaves everything she has to Floom and his gold-plated revival. The Uckers are at a loss for words. And an inheritance, a house, and a future.

Until their long-lost aunt shows up with a secret: Floom is their grandfather; some new relatives: a family of liars, cheats, and thieves; and best of all, a plan: infiltrate Floom’s multimillion-dollar ministry and pull off the grandest heist in Ucker family history.

When you’ve got nothing left to lose, you might as well risk it all. 

Frank Bill - The Savage (2017)

In the raucous and action-packed follow-up to Donnybrook, mayhem is still the order of the day-only more so

Frank Bill's America has always been stark and violent. In his new novel, he takes things one step further: the dollar has failed; the grid is wiped out.
Van Dorn is eighteen and running solo, dodging the bloodthirsty hordes and militias that have emerged since the country went haywire. His dead father's voice rings in his head as Van Dorn sets his sights not just on survival but also on an old-fashioned sense of justice.
Meanwhile, a leader has risen among the gangs-and around him swirls the cast of brawlers from Donnybrook, with their own brutal sense of right and wrong, of loyalty and justice through strength.
So, this is not the distant postapocalyptic future-this is tomorrow, in a world Bill has already introduced us to. Now he raises the stakes and turns his shotgun prose on our addiction to technology, the values and skills we've lost in the process, and what happens when the last systems of morality and society collapse.
The Savage presents a bone-chilling vision of America where power is the only currency and nothing guarantees survival. And it presents Bill at his most ambitious, most eloquent, most powerful.

Jeffrey Frye - One Crazy Day (2014)

""She turned around and smiled and said, 'I didn't see you standing there. I'm sorry.' I dropped my voice an octave to put some bass in it and said, 'Not half as sorry as you're getting ready to be because I need you to put your hands flat on the counter and not make any sudden movements...and I need you to remain calm and breathe. Do you understand what's going on here?' ""As I said this I arched my left eyebrow and gave her what I call, 'The Bank Robber Big-Eye.'"" After his arrest that followed a lengthy manhunt in 2009, Jeffrey Frye was termed a ""serial bank robber"" by authorities. He is now serving a 20 year prison sentence. 'One Crazy Day' takes us through a standard day in the life of your favourite felon, as he juggles his drug addiction, a money grabbing girlfriend and - of course - one of his seven bank robberies. 'One Crazy Day' is limited to 200 copies... grab your own slice of the Bank Blogger's life while you still can.

Allen Eskens, Craig Johnson, Steph Post, Steve Shadow (J. Frank James is from another tub!)

Steve Shadow - On the Grift (2012)

The year is 1949. The place is Chicago in the dead of winter. The trauma of the war and its aftermath has yet to dissipate. The housing shortage is severe and the boom time of the 1950's still lies ahead.

Into town rolls a grifter, a lost soul on the make. As plots are hatched and lives are broken, this runaway train of a story speeds out of control on a one-way track to hell.

Steph Post - A Tree Born Crooked (2014)

James Hart, with a tough-as-nails exterior and an aching emptiness inside, does not want to go home. Yet when James receives a postcard from his mother, Birdie Mae, informing him of his father's death, he bites the bullet and returns to the rural and stagnant town of Crystal Springs, Florida, a place where dreams are born to die. James is too late for Orville's funeral, but just in time to become ensnared in the deadly repercussions of his younger brother Rabbit's life of petty crime. When Rabbit is double crossed by his cousin in a robbery-turned-murder, James and a local bartender, the unsettling and alluring Marlena Bell, must come up with a plan to save Rabbit's skin. A whirlwind road trip across the desolate Florida panhandle ensues as James tries to stay one step ahead of the vengeful Alligator Mafia and keep his brother alive. With bullets in the air and the ghosts of heartache, betrayal and unspeakable rage haunting him at every turn, James must decide just how much he is willing to risk to protect his family and find a way home.

Allen Eskens - The Deep Dark Descending (2017)

A homicide detective hunts down his wife's killers while struggling between his thirst for revenge and a twinge of conscience forbidding him to take the law into his own hands. Homicide Detective Max Rupert never fully accepted his wife's death, even when he believed that a reckless hit-and-run driver was to blame. Haunted by memories both beautiful and painful, he is plagued by feelings of unfinished business. When Max learns that, in fact, Jenni was murdered, he must come to terms with this new information - and determine what to do with it. Struggling to balance his impulses as a vengeful husband with his obligations as a law enforcement officer, Max devotes himself to relentlessly hunting down those responsible. For most of his life, he has thought of himself as a decent man. But now he's so consumed with anguish and thoughts of retribution that he finds himself on the edge, questioning who he is and what he stands for. On a frozen lake at the US - Canadian border, he wrestles with decisions that could change his life forever, as his rage threatens to turn him into the kind of person he has spent his entire career bringing to justice.

Brian Panowich, F.L. Green, Walter Tevis, Stephen King, Simon Spurrier

Walter Tevis - The Hustler (1959)

When it was first published in 1959, The Hustler was the first--and the best--novel written about billiards in the 400-year history of the game. The book quickly won a respected readership and later an audience for the movie with the same name starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason. The Hustler is about the victories and losses of one "Fast" Eddie Felson, a poolroom hustler who travels from town to town conning strangers into thinking they could beat him at the game when in fact, he is a skillful player who has never lost a game. Until he meets his match in Minnesota Fats, the true king of the poolroom, causing his life to change drastically. This is a classic tale of a man's struggle with his soul and his self-esteem.

F.L. Green - Odd Man Out (1945)

An Irish Republican Army plot goes horribly wrong when its leader, Johnny Murtah, kills an innocent man and is himself gravely wounded. As the police close in on Johnny, his compatriots must make a daring bid to rescue him. But they are not the only ones in pursuit: an impoverished artist, a saintly priest, a sleazy informer, and a beautiful young woman all have their own reasons to be desperate to find him. Meanwhile Johnny wanders the streets injured and alone, trapped in a delirious nightmare, surrounded on all sides by betrayal and faced with the realization that he may die that night with the stain of murder on his soul. As the action unfolds over eight hours of a cold Belfast night, the suspense builds towards an explosive conclusion.

Both a critical success and a bestseller, F. L. Green's masterful thriller Odd Man Out (1945) is best known today as the basis for the classic 1947 film adaptation directed by Carol Reed and starring James Mason. This edition, the first in over 30 years, features a new introduction by Adrian McKinty.

'A spellbinder . . . takes hold before the first shot is fired' - New York Times

Brian Panowich - Bull Mountain (2015)

From a remarkable new voice in Southern fiction, a multigenerational saga of crime, family, and vengeance.

Clayton Burroughs comes from a long line of outlaws. For generations, the Burroughs clan has made its home on Bull Mountain in North Georgia, running shine, pot, and meth over six state lines, virtually untouched by the rule of law. To distance himself from his family's criminal empire, Clayton took the job of sheriff in a neighboring community to keep what peace he can. But when a federal agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms shows up at Clayton's office with a plan to shut down the mountain, his hidden agenda will pit brother against brother, test loyalties, and could lead Clayton down a path to self-destruction.

In a sweeping narrative spanning decades and told from alternating points of view, the novel brilliantly evokes the atmosphere of the mountain and its inhabitants: forbidding, loyal, gritty, and ruthless. A story of family - the lengths men will go to protect it, honor it, or in some cases destroy it - Bull Mountain is an incredibly assured debut that heralds a major new talent in fiction.

Mark Pryor, Malcolm Mackay, Bill Pronzini, Robert M. Eversz, Didier Daeninckx

Didier Daeninckx - Nazis in the Metro (2014)

A riveting novel of political intrigue, set on the Left Bank of Paris

From France's leading political crime writer comes a novel that delves into the country's radical political movements on both the left and the right, in the wake of a brutal attack.

When Andre Sloga, an apparently washed-up novelist with a history of baiting the system, is assaulted and left for dead in the basement of his apartment building, the freelance private eye Gabriel Lecouvreur takes on the case. The police consider it a robbery gone wrong, but Lecouvreur, a great reader who admires Sloga's books, thinks the matter runs deeper than that.

And as he looks into it further, he discovers that Sloga had not in fact quit writing after he was dropped by his prestigious publishing house for his increasingly provocative novels. Instead, Sloga was at work on an explosive book that had led him into extremist political circles ... until someone put a stop to it.

Steeped in the real Paris, where graffiti, squats, and skinheads dominate the streets, Didier Daeninckx's Nazis in the Metro is a vivid portrait of a side of the city few foreigners see, wrapped in an utterly gripping mystery.

Robert Eversz - Shooting Elvis (1997)

There was no way that Mary Alice could have known loving Wrex was a mistake, or that Wrex could have known that Mary Alice could get angry - and even. Changing her image, her name and her life, Nina Zero becomes a fugitive from the law as she takes on her pursuers in a series of confrontations

Jason Starr, Gerald Seymour, Chuck Wendig, Steve Cavanagh, Robert Williams,

Jason Starr - Savage Lane (2015)

The chilling psychological thriller from the Anthony Award-winning author of PANIC ATTACK

EVERYONE HAS A SECRET

Life is sublime in the idyllic suburb of New York City. Recent divorcee Karen Daily and her two kids have for the first time in years found joy as they settle into the close-knit community of Savage Lane. Neighbors, Mark and Deb Berman, have been so supportive as Karen moves on in life: teaching at the local school and even dating again.

But behind pristine houses and perfect smiles lie dark motives far more sinister than Karen could have ever imagined. Unknown to her, Mark, trapped in his own unhappy marriage, has developed a rich fantasy life for the two of them. And as rumors start to spread, it seems that he isn't the only one targeting her...

PRAISE FOR JASON STARR'S SAVAGE LANE
"Reminiscent of Rick Moody's THE ICE STORM and Tom Perrotta's LITTLE CHILDREN, SAVAGE LANE is a novel of our lives and times that is a must-read on multiple levels... Starr is one of the greatest writers now working in the United States."
BOOKREPORTER

Adrian McKinty, Larry D. Sweazy, E.A. Aymar x 2, Urban Waite

Adrian McKinty - I Hear the Sirens in the Street (2013)

Detective Inspector Sean Duffy returns for the incendiary sequel to "The Cold Cold Ground". Sean Duffy knows there's no such thing as a perfect crime. But a torso in a suitcase pretty close. Still, one tiny clue is all it takes, and there it is. A tattoo. So Duffy, fully fit and back at work after the severe trauma of his last case, is ready to follow the trail of blood - however faint - that always, always connects a body to its killer. A legendarily stubborn man, Duffy becomes obsessed with this mystery as a distraction from the ruins of his love life, and to push down the seed of self-doubt that he seems to have traded for his youthful arrogance. So from country lanes to city streets, Duffy works every angle. And wherever he goes, he smells a rat...

Larry D. Sweazy - See Also Proof (2018)

Marjorie Trumaine, a freelance indexer from rural North Dakota in the 1960s, risks her life to help local law enforcement track down a missing, disabled girl. Dickinson, North Dakota, 1965. It's a harsh winter, and freelance indexer Marjorie Trumaine struggles to complete a lengthy index while mourning the recent loss of her husband, Hank. The bleakness of the weather seems to compound her grief, and then she gets more bad news: a neighbor's fourteen-year-old disabled daughter, Tina Rinkerman, has disappeared. Marjorie joins Sheriff Guy Reinhardt in the search for the missing girl, and their investigation quickly leads to the shocking discovery of a murdered man near the Rinkermans' house. What had he been doing there? Who would have wanted him dead? And, above all, is his murder connected to Tina's disappearance? Their pursuit of answers will take Marjorie all the way to the Grafton State School, some six hours away, where Tina lived until recently. And the information she uncovers there raises still more questions. Will the murderer come after Marjorie now that she knows a long-hidden secret?

Les Edgerton, Dana King, Michael Wiley, Pascal Garnier, Frank Westworth

Dana King - Bad Samaritan (2018)

Nick Forte has a hard time leaving well enough alone. He seriously injures a man for slapping a woman Forte has never seen before, so when Becky Tuttle comes to him with disconcerting letters sent to her author alter ago Desiree d'Arnaud, he does more than a cursory investigation. Following the thread of Becky's problem leads through a local cop who takes the situation too lightly for Forte's taste and into the disturbing world of men's rights activists, for whom he has no use at all.

Becky's case isn't the only thing going on in Forte's life. A chance meeting with Lily O'Donoghue, a former prostitute whose mother's death Forte feels responsible for, leads to a blackmailer who has videos of Lily's former occupation. Forte takes care of the blackmailer with minimal fuss, but learns (again) that no good deed goes unpunished. Forte's innocent intercession brings him back into the sphere of Chicago gangster Mickey Touhy, who has interest in both Lily and Forte.

Forte's usual cast of Sharon, Goose, Delbert, Sonny, Jan, and, of course, his daughter Caroline do what they can to keep him on an even keel. The problem is that Forte's keel may be permanently damaged and the only resolutions he can arrive at satisfy no one, least of all himself.

Praise for BAD SAMARITAN:

"Nick Forte is a throwback to the classic tough guy, politically incorrect PI who takes care of business. He's the kind of guy you'd want working for you, if you were in a tough spot. And Dana King is a master at creating a low-down, dirty world where everyone needs a someone like Forte on his side." - Charles Salzberg, author of the Henry Swann mysteries

Michael Wiley - A Bad Night's Sleep (2011)

Working late-night surveillance at a luxury condominium development, Chicago private investigator Joe Kozmarski encounters a burglary crew. Two of the crew members show up in a police cruiser dressed in uniform. In the chaos that follows, Kozmarski shoots and kills one of the thieves, who, like the rest of the crew, is one of Chicago's Finest. And just like that Kozmarski finds he's in for many a bad night's sleep.

Kozmarski joins the burglary crew, working as an inside agent for his old friend Lieutenant Bill Gubman. Facing dangerous suspicions from both the criminal gang and the uncorrupted ranks of the police department, uncertain about who wishes to help him stay alive and who wishes to kill him, Kozmarski takes his wildest ride yet. A Bad Night's Sleep pushes full throttle through the streets of Chicago to a stunning conclusion.

Stephen Hunter, Donald E. Westlake, John Clarkson, Quentin Bates, Hanna Jameson

Stephen Hunter - Point of Impact (1993)

In the jungles of Vietnam, Bob Lee Swagger was known as 'Bob the Nailer' for his high-scoring target rate at killing. Today the master sniper lives in a trailer in the Arkansas mountains, and just wants to be left alone. But he knows too much... about killing.The mission is top secret. Dangerous, patriotic, and rigged from the start. One thing goes wrong: double-crossed Bob has come out alive. Now he is on the run. His only allies: an FBI agent in disgrace and a beautiful woman. His only hope: find the elusive mastermind who set him up.Multi-layered with non-stop action, this hot-shot torcher of a thriller is addictive, exciting and right on target. A high-tech, high-ride reading experience.

Donald E. Westlake - Cops and Robbers (1972)

Meet Tom and Joe, two upstanding suburban family men who are New York City cops looking to make a little more money--two million dollars, in fact. They soon discover how risky it is to get involved with the Mob or rob Wall Street.

Quentin Bates - Frozen Out (2011)

A body is found floating in the harbor of a rural Icelandic fishing village. Was it an accident, or something more sinister? It's up to Officer Gunnhildur, a sardonic female cop, to find out. Her investigation uncovers a web of corruption connected to Iceland's business and banking communities. Meanwhile, a rookie crime journalist latches onto her, looking for a scoop, and an anonymous blogger is stirring up trouble. The complications increase, as do the stakes, when a second murder is committed. Frozen Assets is a piercing look at the endemic corruption that led to the global financial crisis that bankrupted Iceland's major banks and sent the country into an economic tailspin from which it has yet to recover.

Les Edgerton, Michael Wiley, Rusty Barnes, Jock Serong, Alan Carter

Michael Wiley - The Last Striptease (2007)

In his impressive and confident debut, Michael Wiley delivers a thrilling tale about how greed and revenge play out on the streets of Chicago.
Private eye Joe Kozmarski has just been asked to clear his childhood friend Bob Piedras of murder. Bob's latest girlfriend, a young Vietnamese-American beauty, has turned up dead in an airport hotel. No one's very surprised. She had a taste for hard liquor, drugs, and stripping in front of a camera. And Bob has a history of violence. But Bob's boss, retired judge Peter Rifkin, is convinced Bob is innocent and he thinks Joe is the one to find the real killer.
But Joe's life is complicated. He hasn't spoken to Rifkin for fifteen years---ever since his father, now dead, found out that the judge had double-crossed him. The dead woman's brothers, a pair of tough guys, are bent on being the first to find and punish her murderer. On top of that, Joe and his wife have separated and his mother has dropped his eleven-year-old nephew on him. But the more obstacles Joe encounters, the more determined he becomes to see this case through.
Since its beginning, the PWA/SMP Best First Private Eye Novel Contest has accomplished its mission of finding amazing new talent in mystery writing. With vividly realized characters and a page-turning story line, The Last Striptease is the latest in what has become a long tradition of excellent crime fiction.

Jock Serong - The Rules of Backyard Cricket (2016)

Darren has two big talents: cricket and trouble. It is no surprise, then, that he becomes an Australian sporting star of the bad-boy variety - one of those men who's always got away with things and just keeps going...until the day we meet him, middle aged and in the boot of a car, and everything pointing towards a shallow grave.

Gripping suspense from the Ned Kelly Award-winning author of Quota.

Jean-Patrick Manchette - Fatale (1977)

Whether you call her a coldhearted grifter or the soul of modern capitalism, there's no question that Aimée is a killer and a more than professional one. Now she's set her eyes on a backwater burg - where, while posing as an innocent (albeit drop-dead gorgeous) newcomer to town, she means to sniff out old grudges and engineer new opportunities, deftly playing different people and different interests against each other the better, as always, to make a killing. But then something snaps: the master manipulator falls prey to a pure and wayward passion.

Aimée has become the avenging angel of her own nihilism, exacting the destruction of a whole society of destroyers. An unholy original, Jean-Patrick Manchette transformed the modern detective novel into a weapon of gleeful satire and anarchic fun. In Fatale he mixes equal measures of farce, mayhem, and madness to prepare a rare literary cocktail that packs a devastating punch.

Tub 86 put to bed!

FULL LIST OF 50 AS FOLLOWS.......

AUTHOR		TITLE	YEAR	SERIES
AYMAR	E. A.	I'LL SLEEP WHEN YOU'RE DEAD	2013	DT1
AYMAR	E. A.	YOU'RE AS GOOD AS DEAD	2015	DT2
BARNES	RUSTY	RECKONING	2014
BATES	QUENTIN	FROZEN OUT	2011	GM1
BILL	FRANK	THE SAVAGE	2017	D2
BROADFOOT	NEIL	ALL THE DEVILS	2016	DM3
CARTER	ALAN	MARLBOROUGH MAN	2017
CARTER	ALAN	BAD SEED	2015	CW3
CAVANAGH	STEVE	THE PLEA	2016	EF2
CAVANAGH	STEVE	THE LIAR	2017	EF3
CLARKSON	JOHN	AMONG THIEVES	2015	JB1
DAENINCKX	DIDIER	NAZIS IN THE METRO	2014
EDGERTON	LES	BOMB	2016
EDGERTON	LES	LAGNIAPPE	2017
ESKENS	ALLEN	THE DEEP DARK DESCENDING	2017
EVERTSZ	ROBERT	SHOOTING ELVIS	1996	NZ1
FRYE	JEFFREY	ONE CRAZY DAY	2014
GARNIER	PASCAL	TOO CLOSE TO THE BONE	2016
GREEN	F. L.	ODD MAN OUT	1945
HUNTER	STEPHEN	POINT OF IMPACT	1993	BLS1
JAMESON	HANNA	SOMETHING YOU ARE	2012	LU1
JOHNSON	CRAIG	THE COLD DISH	2004	WLM1
KING	STEPHEN	JOYLAND	2013
KING	DANA	BAD SAMARITAN	2018	NF5
LEONARD	ELMORE	THE HOT KID	2005	CW1
MACKAY	MALCOLM	HOW A GUNMAN SAYS GOODBYE	2013	GT2
MANCHETTE	JEAN-PATRICK	FATALE	2011
McKINTY	ADRIAN	I HEAR THE SIRENS IN THE STREET	2013	SD2
PANOWICH	BRIAN	BULL MOUNTAIN	2015
POST	STEPH	A TREE BORN CROOKED	2014
PRONZINI	BILL	ZIGZAG	2016	N?
PRONZINI	BILL	ENDGAME	2017	N41
PRYOR	MARK	THE SORBONNE AFFAIR	2017	HM7
SERONG	JOCK	THE RULES OF BACKYARD CRICKET	2016
SEYMOUR	GERALD	JERICHO'S WAR	2017
SHADOW	STEVE	ON THE GRIFT	2012
SHAW	JOHNNY	THE UPPER HAND	2018
SPURRIER	SIMON	CONTRACT	2007
STARR	JASON	SAVAGE LANE	2015
SWEAZY	LARRY D.	SEE ALSO PROOF	2018	MTM3
TEVIS	WALTER	THE HUSTLER	1959	FEF1
WAITE	URBAN	DEAD IF I DON'T	2012
WALLACE	SANDI	ON THE JOB	2017
WENDIG	CHUCK	DOUBLE DEAD	2011	DD1
WESTLAKE	DONALD E	CORKSCREW	2000
WESTLAKE	DONALD E	COPS AND ROBBERS	1972
WESTWORTH	FRANK	THE STONER STORIES	2016
WILEY	MICHAEL	A BAD NIGHT'S SLEEP	2011	JK3
WILEY	MICHAEL	THE LAST STRIPTEASE	2007	JK1
WILLIAMS	ROBERT	LUKE AND JON	2010