Given its extraordinary span, its international scope, and its variant styles and groundbreaking stylists, A Century of Great Suspense Stories is a singular achievement. A bestselling master of suspense himself Jeffery Deaver had the enviable task of selecting from the thousands of stories written over the past one hundred years those which best represented the classic form, as well as the justly celebrated authors whose ironic twists and stunning payoffs left a lasting, vivid, and unnerving impression. The result is a triumph. In this ambitious anthology you’ll revel in the sardonic, overtly amoral plotting of Patricia Highsmith. You’ll rediscover the strangely poignant and surprising turns of Stanley Ellin, and the profoundly underrated Margaret Millar, a genius who mixed savage social satire with brooding horror. You’ll be treated to Stephen King at his chilling best. You’ll find yourself on the violent urban streets of Ross Macdonald and Mickey Spillane, and seeped in the ominous regional flavor of Sharyn McCrumb and Tony Hillerman. You’ll marvel at the cunning webs spun by Lawrence Block, Ruth Rendell, Anthony Boucher, and Sara Paretsky, all of whom defy expectations as they reinvent the genre. And you’ll understand the awesome reputations of those authors who set the standard, such as the legendary Harlan Ellison, Fredric Brown, the master of the twist ending, and James M. Cain, uncannily skilled at knowing what went on between men and women behind closed doors. (The darker the room the better.) Delivering everything from the one-two punch of the detective story to the ingeniously precise trappings of the police procedural, from the disquieting corners of the criminal mind to sheer dread-inducing horror, A Century of Great Suspense Stories is a rich anthology of this popular literary genre, a stunning tribute to the art of storytelling, and to the men and women who have done it best

In Port City, Iowa, Mallory is a writer of detective stories, not a detective, but once again real-life crime comes to divert him from the fictional variety. In the middle of the night, he gets a call from Sheriff Brennan; the sheriff summons him to the outskirts of town to where Ginnie Mullens’s body has just been discovered. Mallory and Ginnie had grown up together. After high school, however, Ginnie became a prototypical hippie, and when the wave of the sixties receded, she continued to live outside of convention. Ginnie made her own rules. “Best friends” since babyhood, she and Mal have grown almost completely apart. Brennan’s call now brings back a flood of old memories, old resentments, old regrets to Mallory. The sheriff is not satisfied that Ginnie. as it appears, has killed herself; he suspects murder. Unable to act on his suspicion officially, he asks Mallory to sec what he can learn from the people Ginnie has been involved with. Soon, Mal finds himself questioning ex-flower children whose adjustment to the eighties has been to overlay activities like dope dealing with the material trappings of middle-class life. Mallory also encounters Ginnie’s ex-partner and ex-lover, who has bought out her successful boutique; her estranged husband, a gentle poet who is caring for their four-year-old little girl; and some high school classmates in whom the fifteen years has made drastic changes — some for the better. In his search for the real reason behind Ginnie’s death. Mallory comes to see that the dreams of the children of Aquarius have died. What he doesn’t expect to find is the cause of a very immediate threat to his own life as well

Secrets and betrayals, as the saga of Dark Angel continues! In a chaotic world where the lines between good and evil often blur, and violent anarchy and brutal repression become commonplace, secrets can be deadly. So when Max discovers a shattering truth that Logan has kept concealed from her for years, the betrayal threatens the very essence of their trust. Yet when Logan is kidnapped, all questions of truth and loyalty are cast aside. Max’s search will lead her to a familiar, menacing enemy — and back into the shadow of the Snake Cult, which waits for her with chilling anticipation. But the search will also lead her into wholly unexpected territory. Locked in the fight of her life, Max will discover a captive of the cult who can provide her with the one thing that has haunted her ever since she escaped from Manticore

Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Brian Grazer, Steve Zaillian, and Ridley Scott team to tell the true juggernaut success story of a cult hero from the streets of 1970s Harlem in American Gangster. Nobody used to notice Frank Lucas (Oscar® winner Washington), the quiet driver to one of the inner city’s leading black crime bosses. But when his boss suddenly dies, Frank exploits the opening in the power structure to build his own empire and. create his own version of the American Dream. Through ingenuity and a strict business ethic, he comes to rule the inner-city drug trade, flooding the streets with a purer product at a better price. Lucas outplays all of the leading crime syndicates and becomes not only one of the city’s mainline corrupters, but part of its circle of legit civic superstars. Richie Roberts (Oscar® winner Crowe) is an outcast cop close enough to the streets to feel a shift of control in the drug underworld. Roberts believes someone is climbing the rungs above the known Mafia families and starts to suspect that a black power player has come from nowhere to dominate the scene. Both Lucas and Roberts share a rigorous ethical code that sets them apart from their own colleagues, making them lone figures on opposite sides of the law. The destinies of these two men will become intertwined as they approach a confrontation where only one of them can come out on top. A novelization by Max Allan Collins Based on the motion picture screenplay by Steven Zaillian

Chicago, September 1964. Beatlemania sweeps the nation, the Vietnam War looms, and the Warren Commission prepares to blame a “lone-nut” assassin for the killing of President John F. Kennedy. But as the post-Camelot era begins, a suspicious outbreak of suicides, accidental deaths, and outright murders decimates assassination witnesses. When Nathan Heller and his son are nearly run down on a city street, the private detective wonders if he himself might be a loose end... Soon a faked suicide linked to President Johnson’s corrupt cronies takes Heller to Texas, where celebrity columnist Flo Kilgore implores him to explore that growing list of dead witnesses. With the blessing of Bobby Kennedy — former US attorney general, now running for Senator from New York — Heller and Flo investigate the increasing wave of violence that seems to emanate from the notorious Mac Wallace, rumored to be LBJ’s personal hatchet man. Fifty years after JFK’s tragic death, Collins’s rigorous research for Ask Not raises new questions about the most controversial assassination of our time

Los Angeles, 2019. Large sections of Tinseltown are in Richter-scale ruins in the aftermath of the Pulse and a devastating earthquake. Surviving among a ragtag pack of street kids, agile as a cat, and an expert thief, Max steals from the rich and gives to Moody, her mentor in crime and leader of the gang. But with no real family to speak of, Max longs for her missing “brothers and sisters” from Manticore, the covert agency with a sinister history of militaristic manipulation and control. By chance, Max sees a news story on TV about a dissident cyberjournalist in Seattle, known to everyone as “Eyes Only.” The police are searching for his accomplice, a young rebel whose image flashes on the screen. Max immediately recognizes Seth, one of her Manticore siblings. She mounts her motorcycle and hightails it north. What she rides into is an elaborate web of betrayal, greed, revenge, and selfless heroism that will only further fuel her quest to uncover the secrets of her past—and seize hope for the future

THE BIG PAY OFF Frank Nolan had been on the outside a long time. But now the Family was split in two, the doors to power were open, and Nolan walked in — right into a sizzling crossfire of doublecross, danger and death. Nolan didn’t know who wanted him out of the way. He just knew he had a sweet young swinger named Sherry for unlimited aid and comfort, a well-worn and trusted.38 for limited security, and an old score that could only be settled with BLOOD MONEY

Five Star authors (and husband and wife Barbara and Max Allan Collins team up again on the novel Bombshell, about a star-crossed meeting between a man who held the fate of the world in his hand, and the woman who became America's most unlikely diplomat, in a history mystery that just might have happened. September 1959 — the height of the Cold War. As American school children "duck and cover" in classroom drills, Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev suddenly announces he wants to visit the United States. President Eisenhower, eager to defuse the mounting tension — and show the communist ruler the advantages of capitalism — agrees to the history-making trip. Khrushchev has only two demands: he wants to see Disneyland… and Marilyn Monroe. He was, for security reasons, refused his first request; the second request, a meeting with Hollywood's blonde bombshell, was arranged… This much is historical fact. According to the authors of Bombshell, “The events mat transpired on the cool autumn evening that Khrushchev met Marilyn were never reported by the media; only the CIA and KGB really knew what had happened during those early morning hours. Now, with recent government declassifications, the rest of the world can... and will... know." Marilyn, aware of an attempt to assassinate Khrushchev at the Beverly Hills Hotel, has only hours to convince Jack Harrigan—a stubborn State Department agent in charge of the premier—of the covert plot which would unquestionably launch the two superpowers into World War III. When Harrigan at first refuses to take her seriously, the sex goddess takes it upon herself to rescue the famous Russian, spiriting him away for a midnight visit to the theme park he longs to see. At once an historical novel, espionage thriller, and comic mystery, Bombshell accomplishes something few if any of the scores of books on these two icons of the 20th century manage: to bring to life the great movie star and the Russian dictator as real people... human, flawed, and, in their own individual ways, heroic

New York Times bestselling author Max Allan Collins seamlessly blends fact and fiction to recreate the twentieth century’s most notorious crimes. Now, in this spellbinding tale of suspense, detective Nathan Heller leaves behind the glamour of Hollywood for a wild ride in the Windy City... Chicago, 1950 — the target of America’s first-ever congressional inquiry into organized crime. Big trouble for anyone who knows where the bodies are buried, and Nate Heller has buried more than a few of them himself. He has no illusions about his civic — he prefers to stay alive and in business, mixing with the likes of starlet Jayne Mansfield and singer Frank Sinatra. But certain high-level gangsters, including Sam Giancana and the Fischetti brothers, aren’t so sure Heller will stay discreet After all, the private eye’s partner, ex-cop Bill Drury, is cooperating with the feds in a big way. And soon Heller finds himself at the center of a federal squeeze play as Red-baiting senator Joe McCarthy weighs in with his own threats... and a strange hidden agenda When Drury becomes the target of Syndicate assassins, and a troubled showgirl is sadistically victimized, Heller stands up against the mob — not in court, but with his own brand of rough justice. From the Ferris wheels and roller coasters of Riverview Park to the dark alleys and sleazy strip bars of the Near Northside, Chicago Confidential showcases Max Allan Collins, the “master of true-crime fiction (Publishers Weekly), at his innovative best

An anthology of stories An all-new mystery anthology edited and featuring a new story by #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris Nighttime is the perfect time for the perfect crime. #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris edits and contributes an all-new story-set in her Sookie Stackhouse universe-to this anthology from the Mystery Writers of America. Other authors include: Steve Brewer Dana Cameron Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane Barbara D'Amato Brendan DuBois Terrie Farley Moran Jack Fredrickson Parnell Hall Carolyn Hart S. W. Hubbard Toni L. P. Kelner Lou Kemp William Kent Kreuger Harley Jane Kozak Margaret Mahon Martin Meyers Jeffrey Somers Elaine Viets Mike Wiecek

From Publishers Weekly One of a handful of novels he was working on at the time of his death, this fine, perhaps final, work from hard-boiled fiction icon Spillane (1918–2006) was prepared for publication by Hard Case vet Max Allan Collins. In it, NYPD detective Jack Stang receives word that his old fiancee, Bettie, who supposedly died in a kidnapping-gone-wrong 20 years earlier, is still alive and residing in a small Florida coastal community. The good news is countered by the fact that, in the car crash that was supposed to have killed her, she lost her eyesight and all her memories. Even worse, the men who had her kidnapped in the first place have perfectly good memories and are still looking for her—and willing to kill for the information locked in her damaged brain. This is a more sentimental Spillane than readers might expect, but the women are still dolls, the bad guys are still louses, and the hero still packs a helluva punch (along with his trusty .45, natch). Spillane always said he wrote for his fans, not for the critics, but both should be pleased with this late addition to the writer's canon. Product Description THE FINAL CRIME NOVEL FROM THE KING OF PULP FICTION! For 20 years, former NYPD cop Jack Stang has lived with the memory of his girlfriend’s death in an attempted abduction. But what if she didn’t actually die? What if she somehow secretly survived, but lost her sight, her memory, and everything else she had… except her enemies? Now Jack has a second chance to save the only woman he ever loved – or to lose her for good

Chicago, 1947. Nathan Heller, formerly of the United States Marines, currently head of the A-1 Detective Agency, is settling happily into post-war suburban prosperity in the company of his lovely, pregnant wife. But when a client’s child turns up murdered, a detective who thinks he’s seen it all finds he hasn’t. The dead little girl is apparently the handiwork of a serial murderer whose lipstick-scrawled cry for help — “Catch Me Before I Kill More” — is a pledge Heller intends to help the killer keep. In the novella “Dying in the Post-War World,” Max Allan Collins — who, says best-selling suspense author Andrew Vachss, “blends fact and fiction like no other writer” — presents a fresh and powerful look at one of Chicago’s most famous crimes. In Dying in the Post-War World, Max Allan Collins ably demonstrates why Chicago Magazine has dubbed him “the master of true-crime fiction.” And Nathan Heller shows himself to be not only a classic private detective in the Hammett/Chandler tradition, but a man as well-flesh and blood, flaws and all

In Eastern Europe four CIA agents are dead — geopolitical pawns caught in border dispute cross fire. Why were they there? Who sent them? Not even the President knows. Back in Washington, the Secretary of the Interior dies from an apparent allergic shock. As details emerge, so do suspicions that she was murdered. Investigating their respective cases, ex — Secret Service agent Joe Reeder and FBI Special Situations Task Force leader Patti Rogers recognize a dangerous conspiracy is in play. When suspects and government contacts are killed off with expert precision, their worst fears are confirmed. As the country edges closer and closer to war, Reeder and Rogers must protect the President — and each other — from an unseen enemy who’s somehow always one step ahead. The stakes have never been higher, against killers who might be anywhere, and Reeder and Rogers have no one to trust but each other

When a retired colleague dies of an apparent suicide, ex–Secret Service agent Joe Reeder knows there must be far more to the story. Why did the man leave a desperate message for Reeder moments before dying? And what could possibly make such a seasoned veteran fear for his life? FBI Special Agent Patti Rogers has a mystery of her own to solve: she’s leading a task force investigating a brutal series of similar but seemingly unconnected murders across the DC area. Are they serial killings or something even more sinister? Could Reeder and Rogers be tracking down different facets of the same conspiracy? And how do the continued assassination attempts on a presidential hopeful figure into an unprecedented attack on the heart of government? The answers to these questions are uncovered in this riveting sequel to the bestselling Supreme Justice

Third in the series by Max Allan Collins that's an homage to Richard Stark's Parker novels

“To the world, she was Amelia Earhart, but to me, and only me, she was Amy.” Detective Nathan Heller has taken on some of the most sensational crimes of the twentieth century. In Flying Blind, he returns to the one unsolved case of his career: the disappearance of America’s most famous aviatrix. The year is 1970. Nathan Heller has retired from his distinguished career as a private investigator. But now a stranger has come knocking at his door. He wants Heller to travel to Saipan, the last place Amelia Earhart may have been seen alive. For Heller, it is an offer he can t resist — the chance to find out what really happened to the woman he once loved... It was a scene right out of a 1930s movie script: Amelia Earhart arriving in Heller’s hometown of Chicago to receive the key to the city in a gala tribute to her upcoming flight around the world. The champagne is flowing, the Cole Porter music is playing, and Nathan Heller has just been hired by Amelia’s publicity-hungry husband to uncover who has been sending Amelia threatening letters. Yet not even Nathan Heller can protect Amelia once she boards the plane that will carry her toward the horizon... only to vanish into the night and into history. Now, decades later, Heller is determined to discover what really happened on that final, fateful flight. It is a journey that will take him to distant, deadly shores, into a world of international intrigue, espionage, betrayal, and finally, to a stunning secret buried at the bottom of the sea, locked away in the vaults of time. A suspenseful novel of dazzling invention that sweeps from the star-studded nightclubs of Hollywood to the exotic tropical islands of the South Pacific, Flying Blind offers a brilliantly realized conclusion to one of history’s most spellbinding puzzles

In a small Midwest town, twenty-eight-year-old Krista Larson has made her mark as the youngest female police chief in the country. She’s learned from the best: her father, Keith, a decorated former detective. But as accustomed as they are to the relative quiet of their idyllic tourist town, things quickly turn with Krista’s ten-year high school reunion. With the out-of-towners holed up in a lakefront lodge, it doesn’t take long to stir up old grudges and resentments. Now a successful TV host, Astrid Lund, voted the “Girl Most Likely to Succeed” — and then some-is back in town. Her reputation as a dogged reporter has made the stunning blonde famous. Her reputation among her former classmates and rivals has made her infamous. Astrid’s list of enemies is a long one. And as the reunion begins, so does a triple murder investigation. Krista and her father are following leads and opening long-locked doors from their hometown to the Florida suburbs to Chicago’s underworld. They just never imagined what would be revealed: the secrets and scandals of Krista’s own past

Heist-man Nolan is enjoying his retirement from crime, running his own restaurant, when the president of a bank he robbed two years ago shows up with a blackmail demand. All Nolan has to do is rob the bank again — and play patsy to a sexy girl friend’s murder scheme

A FAMILY AFFAIR Just when Nolan’s looking for a way out of his dead-end job, trouble comes knocking, and he’s back in business. Someone harboring an old grudge has just picked off Joey DiPreta. a crooked businessman with ties to the mob. and the guy’s family is out to get whoever’s responsible. So is Nolan’s Family — in Chicago — and they offer him big bucks and a piece of a swank hotel if he II protect their interests. Only this time Nolan’s gotten into more than he bargained for. The hit man turns out to be a Vietnam vet convinced he’s launched a holy war against vice and corruption — and the son of one of Nolan’s friends. The melodramatic bastard’s got hard evidence of graft in high places, and he’s set himself up as some kind of avenging angel. His master plan calls for more hits, and there’s no telling when he’ll stop. Meanwhile, Nolan’s pal Jon is courting disaster in a motel room, and a couple of innocents are kidnapped as a ploy to lure the hit man into the open. Somehow Nolan’s got to untangle the whole mess — and see that no one gets hurt. But with both sides out for blood, there’s no room for heroes, and he’ll have to be damned careful — and lucky — not to get nailed in the crossfire

WHO PUT QUARRY IN THE CROSSHAIRS? Formerly a Marine sniper in Vietnam, the man known professionally as Quarry has spent the past decade killing for money, first in the service of an agent called the Broker, and then as a freelance hitman. But he’s always been on the right side of those contract kills — until now. It seems someone has taken out a contract on Quarry himself. But who? And why? And how does a mysterious figure from his past figure in? Quarry will find the answer — or die trying

Kisses of Death contains the previous unpublished title novella, in which Heller becomes Marilyn Monroe’s bodyguard and solves the famous Bodenheim murders

On a lively night at the Victory saloon in Trinidad, New Mexico, Sheriff Caleb York interrupts his poker game to settle a minor dust-up that raises the stakes into major trouble. The wounded miscreant he ushers to the hoosegow spills the secret behind the mysterious disappearance of a certain stage coach. Bound for Denver, the stage carried three important passengers — beautiful ranch owner Willa Cullen, lovely temptress Rita Filley, and wealthy banker Raymond L. Parker. The two women are rivals for the lawman’s love, while Parker is a key investor in Trinidad’s future. But all are gone, with only the corpses of fellow passengers as bullet-ridden clues. York follows a trail of blood to a ghost town known as Hell Junction. To rescue his lady friends and the banker, he must infiltrate an outlaw den... and pray no one among the thieves, killers, and kidnappers will recognize him. With only his desert rat deputy to back him up, York must free the captives, round up the badmen — and, whenever necessary, send them straight to Hell

After Mike Hammer witnesses Wall Street superstar Vincent Colby getting clipped by a speeding red Ferrari, the shaken victim’s stockbroker father hires Hammer to find the driver. But the toughest private eye of them all soon is caught up in a series of bizarre, seemingly unconnected slayings marked by a forbidden martial arts technique

When Crane, a graduate journalism student, hears that his fiancée has committed suicide, he’s immediately suspicious and launches into an investigation of her death. The tiny New Jersey town she lived in has seen a rash of suicides lately, with the unlikely coincidence that everyone who has died worked for Kemco, the chemical factory company that fuels the town’s economy. As Crane digs deeper, he encounters Boone, a local woman writing a book about the environmental destruction that has come at the hands of the local chemical giant. The two team up to unravel the conspiracies surrounding the factory — which soon makes them the next targets for those aiming to keep Kemco’s shady dealings under wraps. The pair races to expose the illegal operations poisoning the town and bring Kemco to justice — before either of them becomes the latest in the growing list of “suicides.”

Collins provides a vivid portrait of college-town life in the Vietnam years as Nolan does a favor for an old-time Mafia friend and tries to find out how his daughter was killed. Was it really a suicide like the police say? Or was she involved somehow in the circle of drugs that was so pervasive in the college scene? Nolan risks his life investigating a Mafia family's involvement in the girl's death to help out his old pal

This delightful husband-and-wife collaboration features three stories by two-time Shamus award-winner Max Allan Collins, four stories by acclaimed short-story writer Barbara Collins, and two stories that the couple co-wrote. Among the contributions from Max Allan Collins — whose credits include novels, nonfiction, film criticism, songwriting, and four independent films — is “Catgate,” in which a womanizing senator tries to replace his dead mistress with a lookalike. Barbara Collins’ work has been included in the first three volumes of The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. Her pieces include “The Inconvenience Store,” in which a late-night craving drives a pregnant private eye out to a convenience store and into a hostage situation; and “Seeing Red,” where PMS meets road rage and leads to tragedy. And the talented duo conspired on “Eddie Haskell in a Short Skirt,” the story of a father-daughter private eye team who hire an office manager and become the suckers in a scam

Hammer is summoned to a meeting with Jamie Winters, United States Senator from New York, and Jamie’s lovely, very smart wife, Nicole, considered by many to be the power behind the throne. Winters is being blackmailed, and Hammer is given a list of suspects who may be behind the threats to the Senator’s contemplated White House bid. But when the suspects begin to drop like flies, Hammer realizes there is more to this case than just a salacious tape. Dragged into the cutthroat world of politics, can Hammer solve the case before the Senator’s secret comes out?

A business trip that brings Mallory from his Iowa home to New York City has been stretched to include his playing a “suspect” in a mystery weekend at Mohonk Mountain House, the rambling upstate New York resort that almost seems to have been designed as backdrop to a murder — real or fictional. In its winding halls and unexpected nooks and crannies, avid fans to try to solve a “crime” acted out by a gaggle of mystery writers, their spouses and companions. Mallory, along with his lover, Jill Forrest, is looking forward to a weekend of fun and relaxation. Curt Clark, the crime writer who is stage-managing this annual outing, has trickily chosen the intended “victim” — mystery critic Kirk Rath, whose magazine has become influential enough to make or break a writer’s career and whose word processor is a thinly disguised dagger kept sharp on authors’ reputations. Author Mallory’s fictional crimes have a way of being topped by real ones, and this is no exception. Or is it? On their first night there, while Jill is incommunicado in the shower, Mallory sees what he believes to be a real murder from his bedroom window. But when he and Jill brave the snow to investigate, there is no body, no blood, no evidence of foul play. Either Mallory is the victim of a prank or this is a part of the crime enactment that Curt Clark was sneakily keeping to himself. Mallory is not convinced, however. And then he and Jill come across evidence that the murder is no joke, and that the snowstorm rapidly cutting off the mountain house from the rest of the world is quite possibly shutting in the game-players and staff with a real killer

The first video arrives by email. An unidentifed man. A naked woman. Her scream caught in a freeze-frame. The producers of TV’s Crime Seen! can’t believe what they’re witnessing — an all-out sadist “auditioning” for a starring role in reality television. And if he doesn’t get it, he’ll kill again. To meet the demented demands of the self-proclaimed “Don Juan,” former sheriff and TV host J.C. Harrow has no choice but to spotlight him along with another ruthless maniac who has captivated millions of viewers. Now two killers are locked in a bloodthirsty competition. For fame. For notoriety. For victims

Where does a hit man draw the line? With a controversial presidential election just weeks away, Quarry is hired to carry out a rare political assignment: kill the Reverend Raymond Wesley Lloyd, a passionate civil rights crusader and campaigner for the underdog candidate. But when a hate group out of Ferguson, Missouri, turns out to be gunning for the same target, Quarry starts to wonder just who it is he’s working for. The longest-running series from Max Allan Collins, author of Road to Perdition, the Quarry novels tell the story of a paid assassin with a rebellious streak and an unlikely taste for justice. Once a Marine sniper, Quarry found a new home stateside with a group of contract killers. But some men aren’t made for taking orders — and when Quarry strikes off on his own, God help the man on the other side of his nine-millimeter

QUARRY’S VIOLENT PAST COMES LOOKING FOR HIM The professional hitman known as Quarry — star of the Cinemax TV miniseries of the same name — has put killing behind him. But after a beautiful writer of true-crime bestsellers drops by to announce he’s the subject of her next book, killers descend to give him some of his own deadly medicine, forcing Quarry to journey into his bloody past to find the answers — and settle old scores. QUARRY’S BLOOD brings the hitman’s decades-long saga right up to the present day as MWA Grand Master Max Allan Collins explores the startling final act of Quarry’s professional career

Memphis, 1975. “Raunchy” doesn’t begin to describe Max Climer’s magazine, Climax, or his all-hours strip club, or his planned video empire. Evangelists, feminists, and local watchdog groups all want him out of business. But someone wants more than that, and has hired a killer to end Max’s career permanently. Only another hit man — the ruthless professional known as Quarry, star of the acclaimed series on Cinemax — can keep Climer from becoming a casualty in the Sexual Revolution

Lake Tahoe, 1973: Michael Satariano — who as a young man fought the Capone mob in Chicago — has reached a comfortable middle age, with a loving wife at home, a talented teenage daughter in high school, and a son earning medals in Vietnam. Now running a casino for the mob, Michael thinks he’s put his killing days behind him — after all, he’s made a respectable life for himself and his family... and plenty of money for the boys back in Chicago. So when godfather Sam Giancana orders him to hit a notoriously violent and vulnerable gangster, Michael refuses. But when the hit goes down anyway, Michael is framed for murder; to save his family, he must turn state’s witness under the fledgling Witness Protection Program. Relocated to the supposed safety of Paradise, a tract-housing development in Arizona, Michael soon finds himself facing a wrath so cruel that even the boy raised by a hitman father is unprepared. And with his teenage daughter in tow, Michael must return to the road and a violent way of life he thought he had long left behind. In this stunning third installment of a trilogy so gripping and masterfully written that it could only come from “[among] the finest crime writers working today” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), we once again have a spellbinding window into a time of heroes and villains — and, above all, a journey along a road on which a man’s greatest crimes are all a part of his lifelong struggle for redemption

THEY CALL HIM THE ANGEL OF DEATH. His real name is Michael Sullivan, professional hit man bound to the criminal underworld of the 1930s and an enigmatic idol to his adoring young sons. He’s also a man who knows that loyalties vanish in the dark — a violent lesson learned one rainy night when his wife and youngest son are killed. Now Sullivan and his last surviving child are about to face off against the most notorious crime syndicate in history — on a journey of revenge and self-discovery

It’s 1942 and — from the Atlantic to the Pacific — the world is torn apart. Ten years ago Michael O’Sullivan accompanied his gangster father on the road, fleeing from the mobsters who killed his mother and young brother. After an idyllic upbringing by loving adoptive parents in a small Midwestern town, Michael is now deep in the jungles of Bataan, carrying a tommy gun like his father’s, fighting the Japanese. When brutal combat unearths deep-buried feelings of violence and revenge, Michael O’Sullivan returns to the homefront, a battle-scarred veteran of twenty-two, ready to pick up his old war against the Chicago Mob. Suddenly, Michael “Satariano” must become one of the enemy, working his way quickly up to the trusted side of Frank Nitti, Al Capone’s heir, putting himself — and his soul — in harm’s way. Leaving behind his heartbroken childhood sweetheart, the war hero enters a limbo of crime and corruption — his only allies: Eliot Ness, seeking one last hurrah as a gangbuster; and a lovely nightclub singer playing her own dangerous game. Even as Michael embraces his father’s memory to battle the Mob from within — leaving bodies and broken lives in his wake — he finds himself sucked into the very way of life he abhors. In a parallel tale set in 1922, Michael O’Sullivan, Sr., chief enforcer for Irish godfather John Looney, is about to become a father. The bidding of Looney — and the misdeeds of the ganglord’s crazed son Connor — put the happy O’Sullivan home at risk. Both Michaels reach a crossroads of violence and compromise as two tales converge into the purgatory of good men trapped in bad lives

Return of a femme fatale. Beautiful, homicidal Julie has one lethal solution for every problem. And now Nolan and his sometime sidekick Jon have gotten on Julie's problem list. If a pair of out-of-town hitmen can't do the job, Julie will do it herself. Said the Cleveland Plain Dealer: “For fans of the hardboiled crime novel… this is powerful and highly enjoyable reading, fast moving and very, very tough.”

Recent almost-college-grad Fred Kitchen and his eccentric six-foot-four pal, Wheaty, pay off a poker debt with a prank — showing their stuff in the then-current fad of streaking. Soon they are under arrest and in jail, killing time by playing cards with a couple of hardened criminals, unwittingly racking up a new debt... one that can only be paid off by participating in a bank robbery during a small-town festival. Written as a tribute to the comic novels of his mentor Donald E. Westlake, Shoot the Moon is a fast, funny crime novel written early in his career by Max Allan Collins

The saga of Dark Angel continues! Someone is killing normal humans in the fog-enshrouded city of Seattle. The murders are brutal and grisly, but inside Terminal City they barely cause a ripple of concern. The transgenics who live there have problems of their own. In an area under siege by the oppressive arm of the police, the transgenics must protect their fledgling colony against the outside world-a world that eyes them with contempt and suspicion... and will do anything to be rid of them. As the killings escalate, Joshua comes to Max with a dire suspicion: the killer may be one of their own. Tensions are high between normal humans and transgenics, and many inside the protected City would just as soon let the humans fend for themselves. Yet Max and her inner circle know they must investigate the crimes and stop the bloodshed. Doing nothing would simply give the normals more reasons to hate. But what they discover will shock even the most jaded among them-and expose a sinister agenda that leads to an old, nefarious foe