STRANGE EMBRACE

They say the show must go on --- but in the case of Broadway's next sensation, A Touch of Squalor, someone s out to make sure the show never opens. And when threats don't do the trick, a straight razor to the throat just might.

It s a case for the NYPD...but with a mysterious killer targeting his cast, producer Johnny Lane can't just wait in the wings. There's a Playbill full of suspects, giving Johnny the casting challenge of his career: who to put in the role of murderer, when the wrong call could bring down the curtain on his show --- or his life!

Published here for the first time in half a century --- and the first time ever under the author s real name --- STRANGE EMBRACE is one of MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block s earliest detective novels, presented in the classic Ace Doubles format with new cover art by the legendary Robert McGinnis. It's two times the Block, and for fans of his whodunits who want to see where it all began, it's cause for a standing ovation...

69 BARROW STREET

Greenwich Village: home to every form of depravity and perversion known to man...or woman.

It's on the streets of the Village that Ralph met Stella --- but what started as a love affair between a painter and his seductive muse has become torment as he s found himself drawn into her world of cruel pleasures. It is a tinderbox of hatred and desire --- and when beautiful Susan Rivers moves into their apartment building, tempting Ralph and Stella both, it's set to ignite.

From dim waterfront bars to the movie houses of Times Square, from nights in rat-trap hotel rooms to drug-fueled orgies in ground-floor apartments, no one can bring 1960s New York to life like Edgar Award winner Lawrence Block. And in this early tale of psychological suspense --- unavailable for 50 years and never before published under his real name --- readers will discover a harrowing portrait of men and women pushed to their limits and beyond. Presented in the classic Ace Doubles format, with new cover art by the legendary Robert McGinnis, it's a double shot of darkness as only Lawrence Block can deliver it.