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Editorial Content for What It Was

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

I was going to start this review with the words “I don’t think anyone is writing crime fiction with quite the style and authority of George Pelecanos.” I changed my mind. One cannot limit the magic that Pelecanos works to crime fiction, as wonderful, deep and wide as that genre may be. His considerable talent has been exhibited over the last several years in novels, television and film while winning a number of awards for his efforts along the way. Read More

Teaser

In 1972, Derek Strange has left the police department and set up shop as a PI. His former partner, Frank "Hound Dog" Vaughn, is still on the force. When a young woman comes to Strange asking for his help recovering a cheap ring she claims has sentimental value, the case leads him onto Vaughn's turf, where a local drug addict has been murdered, shot point-blank in his apartment.

Promo

In 1972, Derek Strange has left the police department and set up shop as a PI. His former partner, Frank "Hound Dog" Vaughn, is still on the force. When a young woman comes to Strange asking for his help recovering a cheap ring she claims has sentimental value, the case leads him onto Vaughn's turf, where a local drug addict has been murdered, shot point-blank in his apartment.

About the Book

Washington, D.C., 1972. Derek Strange has left the police department and set up shop as a private investigator. His former partner, Frank "Hound Dog" Vaughn, is still on the force. When a young woman comes to Strange asking for his help recovering a cheap ring she claims has sentimental value, the case leads him onto Vaughn's turf, where a local drug addict's been murdered, shot point-blank in his apartment. Soon both men are on the trail of a ruthless killer: Red Fury, so called for his looks and the car his girlfriend drives, but a name that fits his personality all too well. Red Fury doesn't have a retirement plan, as Vaughn points out --- he doesn't care who he has to cross, or kill, to get what he wants. As the violence escalates and the stakes get higher, Strange and Vaughn know the only way to catch their man is to do it their own way.

Rich with details of place and time --- the cars, the music, the clothes --- and fueled by non-stop action, this is Pelecanos writing in the hard-boiled noir style that won him his earliest fans and placed him firmly in the ranks of the top crime writers in America.

by Donald E. Westlake - Fiction, Hard-boiled Mystery, Mystery

In Donald E. Westlake's final unpublished novel, the year is 1977, and an aging, legendary Hollywood comedian is kidnapped by a revolutionary cell desperately trying to reignite the 1960s. The tension builds as the comedian struggles to survive, but nothing in this noir tale is as simple as it seems.

Editorial Content for The Comedy Is Finished

Reviewer (text)

Tom Callahan

The first title released by Hard Case Crime in 2012 is a true literary find and masterpiece: the last unpublished novel by the three-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award and Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, Donald E. Westlake. THE COMEDY IS FINISHED is a brilliant work of nonstop suspense and richly developed characters. What is hard to believe is that it was sitting around unpublished for over three decades before the author’s untimely death on New Year’s Eve 2009. Read More

Teaser

In Donald E. Westlake's final unpublished novel, the year is 1977, and an aging, legendary Hollywood comedian is kidnapped by a revolutionary cell desperately trying to reignite the 1960s. The tension builds as the comedian struggles to survive, but nothing in this noir tale is as simple as it seems.

Promo

In Donald E. Westlake's final unpublished novel, the year is 1977, and an aging, legendary Hollywood comedian is kidnapped by a revolutionary cell desperately trying to reignite the 1960s. The tension builds as the comedian struggles to survive, but nothing in this noir tale is as simple as it seems.

About the Book

The year is 1977, and America is finally getting over the nightmares of Watergate and Vietnam and the national hangover that was the 1960s. But not everyone is ready to let it go.

Not aging comedian Koo Davis, friend to generals and presidents and veteran of countless USO tours to buck up American troops in the field. And not the five remaining members of the self-proclaimed People's Revolutionary Army, who've decided that kidnapping Koo Davis would be the perfect way to bring their cause back to life...

The final, previously unpublished novel from the legendary Donald Westlake!

by Nicci French - Fiction, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

The abduction of a five-year-old provokes a national outcry and a desperate police hunt. When his face is splashed over the newspapers, psychotherapist Frieda Klein can’t ignore the coincidence: one of her patients has been having dreams in which he has a hunger for a child.

Editorial Content for Blue Monday

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

Up until yesterday, I have always associated the term “Blue Monday” with the song popularized by Fats Domino. Given that that particular tune was released when I was in kindergarten, which was, uh, a few years ago, you can understand that it would take something of great magnitude to shake that association loose. That event has occurred. It is the publication of the novel BLUE MONDAY by Nicci French. Read More

Teaser

 

The abduction of a five-year-old provokes a national outcry and a desperate police hunt. When his face is splashed over the newspapers, psychotherapist Frieda Klein can’t ignore the coincidence: one of her patients has been having dreams in which he has a hunger for a child.

Promo

The abduction of a five-year-old provokes a national outcry and a desperate police hunt. When his face is splashed over the newspapers, psychotherapist Frieda Klein can’t ignore the coincidence: one of her patients has been having dreams in which he has a hunger for a child.

About the Book

The stunning first book in a new series of psychological thrillers introducing an unforgettable London psychotherapist

Frieda Klein is a solitary, incisive psychotherapist who spends her sleepless nights walking along the ancient rivers that have been forced underground in modern London. She believes that the world is a messy, uncontrollable place, but what we can control is what is inside our heads. This attitude is reflected in her own life, which is an austere one of refuge, personal integrity, and order.

The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes a national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when his face is splashed over the newspapers, Frieda cannot ignore the coincidence: one of her patients has been having dreams in which he has a hunger for a child. A red-haired child he can describe in perfect detail, a child the spitting image of Matthew. She finds herself in the center of the investigation, serving as the reluctant sidekick of the chief inspector.

Drawing readers into a haunting world in which the terrors of the mind have spilled over into real life, BLUE MONDAY introduces a compelling protagonist and a chilling mystery that will appeal to readers of dark crime fiction and fans of IN TREATMENT and THE KILLING.

by Dan Chaon - Fiction, Short Stories

In these suspenseful stories, lost, fragile characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection --- and find themselves in unfathomable situations.

Editorial content for Stay Awake: Stories

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Melanie Smith

Understated, refined horror with flickers of evil here and there; brooding psychological undercurrents that acknowledge humanity as miniscule, uncertain, mortal, weak and powerless. These are writing elements used by Dan Chaon that make his book an eclectic, inscrutable, deeply disturbing experience and truly a read to remember --- much like the great works of timeless horror masters Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock. Read More

Teaser

In these suspenseful stories, lost, fragile characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection --- and find themselves in unfathomable situations.

Promo

In these suspenseful stories, lost, fragile characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection --- and find themselves in unfathomable situations.

About the Book

Before the critically acclaimed novels AWAIT YOUR REPLY and YOU REMIND ME OF ME, Dan Chaon made a name for himself as a renowned writer of dazzling short stories. Now, in STAY AWAKE, Chaon returns to that form for the first time since his master AMONG THE MISSING, a finalist for the National Book Award.

In these haunting, suspenseful stories, lost, fragile, searching characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection --- and find themselves in unexpected, dire, and sometimes unfathomable situations.

A father’s life is upended by his son’s night terrors --- and disturbing memories of the first wife and child he abandoned; a foster child receives a call from the past and begins to remember his birth mother, whose actions were unthinkable; a divorced woman experiences her own dark version of “empty-nest syndrome”; a young widower is unnerved by the sudden, inexplicable appearances of messages and notes --- on dollar bills, inside a magazine, stapled to the side of a tree; and a college dropout begins to suspect that there’s something off, something sinister, in his late parents’ house.

Dan Chaon’s stories feature scattered families, unfulfilled dreamers, anxious souls. They exist in a twilight realm --- in a place by the window late at night when the streets are empty and the world appears to be quiet. But you are up, unable to sleep. So you stay awake.

by Mo Hayder - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Newly divorced and penniless, Sally is desperate to support herself and her teenage daughter. Forced into a criminal world of pornography and drugs, she and her sister --- who has a crippling secret that dates back 20 years --- struggle to keep a grip on reality.

Editorial Content for Hanging Hill

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

HANGING HILL by Mo Hayder is one of those books that you don’t get over after having read it. From its somber first sentences to its final paragraph, this is an instant classic, one that is firmly rooted in the mystery/thriller genre but that transcends classification. Read More

Teaser

 
Newly divorced and penniless, Sally is desperate to support herself and her teenage daughter. Forced into a criminal world of pornography and drugs, she and her sister --- who has a crippling secret that dates back 20 years --- struggle to keep a grip on reality.

Promo

Newly divorced and penniless, Sally is desperate to support herself and her teenage daughter. Forced into a criminal world of pornography and drugs, she and her sister --- who has a crippling secret that dates back 20 years --- struggle to keep a grip on reality.

About the Book

One morning in picture-perfect Bath, England, a teenage girl’s body is found on the towpath of a canal. Lorne Wood --- beautiful, popular, and apparently the victim of a brutal murder. Why was she on the towpath late at night alone? Zoe Benedict --- Harley-riding police detective, independent to a fault --- is convinced the department head needs to look beyond the usual domestic motives to solve the case. Meanwhile Zoe’s sister Sally --- recently divorced and supporting a daughter who was friends with the dead girl --- has begun working as a housekeeper for a rich entrepreneur who quickly begins to seem less eccentric than repugnant, and possibly dangerous. When Zoe’s investigation uncovers evidence that Lorne’s attempts to break into modeling had delivered her into the world of webcam porn, a crippling secret from Zoe’s past seems determined to emerge.

by James F. Simon - History, Nonfiction

Although Franklin D. Roosevelt later called Chief Justice Hughes the best politician in the country, the two men fiercely collided at a pivotal moment in history --- during the initial stages of FDR’s New Deal.