Softcover. NY, Little, Brown & Company, reprint, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 238 pages. Originally published in paperback by Signet Books, December 1961. Deputy sheriff Tom Lord knows by now that far-west Texas is the place he'll always call home. He's spent too much time in the region's small towns to adapt to another place. And that's all right with him. What's not all right is being a deputy sheriff, where if it weren't for family misfortune, he might have been a doctor instead. Lord's got one ace-in-the-hole -- the land deed that makes him the biggest landowner in the county, just as the oil companies have started to move in. When Tom's approached by Aaron McBride of Highlands Oil and Gas with a contract to set up pipelines on his property, he's more than happy to sign on the dotted line with barely more than a cursory glance at the paperwork -- it just might be Lord's way out of a life he never wanted in the first place. But when Lord finds out just what that contract entailed, things start to go sour for Aaron McBride -- and fast. Because in this Texas town, Lord's the law -- and there's nothing more dangerous than a cop with nothing left to lose. Clean, unread copy.

Softcover. NY, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, reprint, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 245 pages. In a rundown house in Santa Monica, Mrs. Samuel Lawrence presses fifty crumpled bills into Lew Archer's hand and asks him to find her wandering daughter, Galatea. Described as 'crazy for men' and without discrimination, she was last seen driving off with small-time gangster Joe Tarantine, a hophead hood with a rep for violence. Archer traces the hidden trail from San Francisco slum alleys to the luxury of Palm Springs, traveling through an urban wilderness of drugs and viciousness. As the bodies begin to pile up, he finds that even angel faces can mask the blackest of hearts.Filled with dope, delinquents and murder, this is classic Macdonald and one of his very best in the Lew Archer series. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt, 3rd pr., 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 333 pages. First novel written by Price using this pseudonym. Story of a "New York City police detective under siege - by an unsolved murder, by his own dark past, and by a violent stalker seeking revenge. . . in the mid-1990s, when a young Billy Graves worked in the South Bronx as part of an aggressive anti-crime unit known as the Wild Geese, he made headlines by accidentally shooting a ten-year-old boy while struggling with an angel-dusted berserker on a crowded street. Branded as a loose cannon by his higher-ups, Billy spent years enduring one dead-end posting after another." Now he finds himself involved in a murder investigation that will tear apart old friendships. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Carroll & Graf, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, mass market paperback, 192 pages. The Woman-Chaser has one of the most interesting plots ever for a crime thriller. Richard Hudson, a crooked, arrogant and vicious car salesman who is really good at his job panics at a meeting of aspiring young reps. He realizes that he is wasting his life in the 9 to 5 grind. It dawns on him that we are on this planet to be creative. So he writes a script with help from his step-father and decides to direct a film based on the script. But when his edited film fails to meet the six reel 90 minute length standard, the studio tries to interfere in the film's future. The crazed car salesman/movie director embarks on a rampage of destruction. Bookseller's stamp on inside front cover, otherwise a clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, William Morrow, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 284 pages. The fifth novel in the "Madoc Rhys and Janet Rhys" series. Clean copy.

Hardcover. UK, The Chicken House, 1st UK, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 348 pages, hardcover with dust jacket. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on half title page. First English translation of German mystery novel. Faint age toning to top and bottom text block edges. Scarce. A tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY PARKER with his usual scrawl on the title page. When Lisa St. Claire, the beautiful young bride of a Boston police detective vanishes mysteriously, Spenser joins the search for the missing woman, following a dangerous trail that leads him to a sociopathic Latino ex-lover and into a deadly confrontation with Lisa's dark past. Clean copy.

Softcover. New York, A Signet Book, 1st, 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 144 pages. Paperbook. Signet Book #1434. Light wear on edges. Light creases on wrapper corners and spine.

Hardcover. Woodstock VT, Foul Play Press, 1st, 1999, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 284 pages. Previous owner's light marking on front fly leaf. "Possibly she even realized, or half-realized, that there was something wrong with her life.... She wondered whether what had happened to the park had happened to her: a dark, rushed change that would never change back." This is England's mystery writer Bill James describing a 13-year-old girl known as Noon, soon to be shot dead while working as a drug courier near a rundown park. Her death sets off a series of explosions in James's latest book in his wonderfully dark and exquisitely written Harpur & Iles series.

Hardcover. NY, Fawcett Columbine, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. SIGNED BY PERRY on the title page. As Police Superintendent Thomas Pitt investigates the leak in the Colonial Office, he quietly looks into the tragic death of his childhood mentor, Sir Arthur Desmond. Pitt believes he was murdered, and that the crime is connected with the treachery in the government. He makes little progress...until a second murder reverberates through London. Clean copy.

Softcover. New York, Pocket Book, 2nd, 1945, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 249 pages. Paperback. Pocket Book #237. Light soil to rear wrapper, spine creasing and fading. Tight copy.

Softcover. New York, Ace Books, 1st, 1958, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Paperback. Double Novel. 135/121 pages. Ace Double Novel #D-321. Previous owner's markings on first pages of each side. Light wear to pictorial wrappers. Pages lightly tanned. Creasing and wear to spine.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1959, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 192 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #D280. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Light crease and fade to spine and front cover. Small notation on first page.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1953, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 224 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #745. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Chipping to top corner. Light wave to pages.

Hardcover. NY, Penzler Publishers, reprint, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 342 pages. When New Orleans coffee merchant Louis Durand first meets his bride-to-be after a months-long courtship by mail, he's shocked that she doesn't match the photographs sent with her correspondence. But Durand has told his own fibs, concealing from her the details of his wealth, and so he mostly feels fortunate to find her so much more beautiful than expected. Soon after they marry, however, he becomes increasingly convinced that the woman in his life is not the same woman with whom he exchanged letters, a fact that becomes unavoidable when she suddenly disappears with his fortune.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1958, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 159 pages. Paperback. Dell Book #978. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Photographic cover art. Light crease to spine and front cover.

Softcover. New York, Dell Publishing, 1st, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 192 pages. Paperback. Dell Bo0k #768. Minor wear to paper wrappers. Cover art by Robert Stanley.

Softcover. New York, Popular Library Mystery, 1st, 1946, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 220 pages. Popular Library Mystery # 72. Light wear to paper wrappers. Pages tanned.

Softcover. NY, Little, Brown & Company, reprint, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 241 pages. In trouble more often than not, guilty of assault, manslaughter, and honorably discharged from the military by the skin of his teeth, David "Bugs" McKenna can't seem to help doing the right thing at the wrong time--or the wrong thing, every chance he gets. But when he drifts his way into Ragtown, Texas, things seem to finally be turning around for Bugs. He gets his first job in years as the hotel detective of the landmark Hanlon Hotel. But now that Bugs owes deputy sheriff Lou Ford a favor, things are likely to get ugly, fast--and odds are, it'll have something to do with the bombshell wife of his Bugs' new employer. In WILD TOWN, Jim Thompson returns to the characters from THE KILLER INSIDE ME that made his reputation, in a virtuoso, multi-character portrait of how one man's life can take a turn for the worse. Clean, unread copy.