Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There's no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues. But that's just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger... (more)

Grifter's Game (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

Grifter's Game (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

by Lawrence Block

From a Noir Master, a Classic Tale of Grift and Greed. Con man Joe Marlin was used to scoring easy cash off beautiful women. But that was before he met Mona Brassard and found himself facing the most dangerous con of his career, one that will leave him either a killer -- or a corpse. Presented unabridged on 5 CDs; narrated by Alan Sklar.

Cool and Lam: Book 13

Top Of The Heap

by Erle Stanley Gardner

Lucky at Cards (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

Lucky at Cards (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

by Lawrence Block

The Hard Case Crime imprint has found a perfect partner in Block, as this gritty grifter's tale, in print for the first time in 40 years, goes to show. In a small town somewhere between Chicago and New York, down on his luck card shark Bill Maynard stops off to take care of his teeth, recently broken in a beating he took for fixing a game. Planning to stay only long enough to heal, Bill's plans change when his... (more)

Two For The Money

Hard Case Crimes

by Max Allan Collins

Five Star First Edition Mystery - Little Girl Lost (Five Star First Edition Mystery)

Five Star First Edition Mystery - Little Girl Lost (Five Star First Edition Mystery)

by Richard Aleas

A Shamus Award-nominee Author John Blake and Miranda Sugarman dated in high school, but after graduation they went their separate ways: he stayed in New York City and became a private investigator while she moved to the midwest and settled down to a safe, respectable life as an eye doctor. Or so he thought -- until the day, ten years later, when he opened the Daily News and saw Miranda's photo staring out at... (more)

Fade To Blonde (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

Fade To Blonde (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

by Max Phillips

Best known for his poetry and literary fiction ( The Artist's Wife , etc.), Phillips contributes to a new crime imprint a hard-boiled whodunit sure to thrill fans of such Golden Age masters as James M. Cain. Ex-boxer/failed screenwriter Ray Corson is as tough talking—and as vulnerable to a pretty face—as any 1940s gumshoe. And terrified blonde bombshell Rebecca LaFontaine looks like a classic damsel in distress... (more)

Night Walker (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

Night Walker (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

by Donald Hamilton

Home Is The Sailor (Hard Case Crime)

by Day Keene

Fright (Hard Case Crime)

by Cornell Woolrich

Dead Street (Hard Case Crime)

by Max Allan Collins, Mickey Spillane

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... (more)

Deadly Beloved

Hard Case Crimes

by Max Allan Collins

TILL DEATH DO US PART... Marcy Addwatter killed her husband-there's no question about that. Shot him dead in the motel room where he was trysting with a blonde hooker. Shot the hooker, too. But where the cops might see an open-and-shut case, private eye Michael Tree-Ms. Michael Tree-sees a conspiracy. For Ms. Tree, digging into it could mean digging her own grave...and digging up her own murdered husband's. ... (more)

No house limit,: A novel of Las Vegas

by Steve Fisher

Joe Martin, owner of the Rainbow’s End casino in Las Vegas, is an independent operator who coexists uneasily with the syndicate, holding down his place on the Strip by keeping both his head and heart strictly on task. But when the syndicate sends the world’s best gambler to the Rainbow’s End craps tables to break the bank—at the exact moment when Martin thinks he might be falling in love—he finds himself under... (more)

Killing Castro

by Lawrence Block

First published under a pen name in 1961, this early thriller by MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block tells of five Americans dispatched to Cuba with a deadly assignment---the assassination of Fidel Castro. Here's what a reviewer had to say on Amazon's site: Hard Case Crime has done it again, bringing us a 1961 pseudonymous thriller from Lawrence Block. Killing Castro focuses on one member of a ragtag ensemble cast... (more)

Lemons Never Lie (Hard Case Crime)

by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake)

361 (Hard Case Crime)

by Donald E. Westlake

Ray Kelly musters out of the air force and meets his father in New York City; on the drive upstate, Ray's dad is shot dead at the wheel. Now that's a first chapter! Recovering from his own injuries, Ray discovers that his brother Bill's wife has been killed, too. Someone is out to get the family, but why? Ray and Bill return to the city and start digging, finding some truly twisty answers. This tale of a... (more)

The Girl With the Long Green Heart (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

The Girl With the Long Green Heart (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

by Lawrence Block

Even before he invented Matthew Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr, Block was writing terrific thrillers such as this. Johnny Hayden and his partner had the perfect scam selling worthless Canadian land to marks. The scam just has to work, because at stake is Evvie--the girl with the long green heart.

The Confession (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

The Confession (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

by Domenic Stansberry

In Edgar-nominee Stansberry's compelling and incredibly dark modern noir shocker, forensic psychologist Jake Danser alternates between his day job—interviewing murder suspects then testifying to their culpability—and bedding as many women as possible without letting his beautiful wife catch on. When one of his mistresses ends up dead, the focus turns on Danser, and a weighty knot of a psychological puzzle begins... (more)

A Touch of Death (Hard Case Crime)

by Charles Williams

The Guns of Heaven (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

The Guns of Heaven (Hard Case Crime (Paperback))

by Pete Hamill

One of the many benefits of audiobook listening is the ability to revisit stories you read years ago. Such is the case with this action tale. Though first released 23 years ago, it's only dated by its villains, not its prose, subject matter, or Christian Conn's delivery. Conn's crisp voice moves you along at a respectable pace, so you don't quite focus on the fact that the story revolves around the conflict in... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: hard case crime

by Stephen King

by Lawrence Block

by Erle Stanley Gardner

by Lawrence Block

Hard Case Crimes

by Max Allan Collins

by Richard Aleas

by Max Phillips

by Donald Hamilton

by Day Keene

by Cornell Woolrich

by Max Allan Collins, Mickey Spillane

Hard Case Crimes

by Max Allan Collins

by Steve Fisher

by Lawrence Block

by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake)

by Donald E. Westlake

by Lawrence Block

by Domenic Stansberry

by Charles Williams

by Pete Hamill