detective – Cutting Edge Books

THE LEDRU BAKER JR. READER: Four Full Novels

Three unforgettable novels by noir master Ledru Baker Jr. in one volume

AND BE MY LOVE
The blockbuster, million copy bestseller in 1951, a beloved Gold Medal classic, is finally back-in-print to enthral a new generation with it’s raw, powerful description of a passionate love affair that had no limits. She belonged to one man…but she wanted another. They tried all the pleasures and they knew all the pain.

THE CHEATERS
A crime lord strong-arms Jack Griffith, a struggling musician, into spying on his wife Mardi, who he suspects is cheating on him…but things go very wrong when Jack falls for her himself.

This book was adapted into the 1990 Canadian TV movie Frame Up Blues aka Le Danse du Scorpion.

BRUTE MADNESS
Mark Mitchell is a playboy atomic rocket scientist who marries the wrong woman…and is betrayed in the worst possible way. He is quickly arrested, convicted of treason, and sentenced to life in prison. But that’s only the beginning of his nightmare in this lightning-fast, insanely unpredictable, brutal Cold War noir thriller.

THE CAPTIVE by Norman Daniels

“An engaging, thoroughly enjoyable literary work. Daniels pulls no punches – this is a violent crime yarn from cover-to-cover.” The Paperback Warrior

World War II veteran Jeff Castle is living a quiet life as a big game hunter in Africa…until he’s called to the bedside of his dying, estranged grandfather in New York, where he learns he’s the sole heir to the man’s business: sixty hotels throughout the state. Castle barely has a chance to absorb the news when he’s seduced by a woman… who is murdered shortly after he leaves her bed. Now, instead of tracking game, he’s hunting for the woman’s killer in the concrete jungle. But the hunter is also the hunted, being stalked by vicous prey — the NY mob, who want to take the empire that he’s inherited, which isn’t what it seems.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

American author Norman Daniels (real name Norman Danberg, 1905-1995) is best known for re-introducing pulp hero Black Bat in 1939. Daniels authored a number of short stories featuring the character for Black Book Detective. Arguably, Black Bat was the catalyst for DC Comics’ iconic Batman. Along with Black Bat, Daniels contributed stories for dozens of pulp magazines like Shadow, Gangster Stories, Thrilling Publications and All Detective. The author’s post-pulp career was immensely successful as Daniels utilized a number of pseudonyms to write crime-noir and adventure paperbacks for a variety of publishers. He also contributed scripts to the TV series Zane Grey Theater, General Electric Theater, Colt. 45, Sugarfoot and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. (Biography courtesy of The Paperback Warrior site)

THE RICH AND THE DAMNED by Richard Himmel

The fourth Johnny Maguire Adventure

Two-fisted lawyer Johnny Maguire is caught in the middle when a wealthy industrialist dies and leaves him in charge of executing the inheritance… which his dead client’s four children are desperate to grab. The children include the industrial’s two daughters, one of whom has shared Johnny’s bed and another who would like to. Meanwhile, a mobster is eager to take-over the dead man’s business…even if it means killing.

RIDE THE GOLD MARE by Ovid Demaris

“Didn’t someone say that life in the early Middle Ages was ‘nasty, brutish, and short’? That’s a pretty good description of this book. Demaris was good.” Bill Crider, award-winning writer of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes novels.

Corrupt LAPD cop Vince Fusco crosses a big line when he executes a drug dealer for his drugs and his woman…but things get worse when he realizes there were witnesses. Now he’s violently raging through the sordid alleys and back streets of L.A.’s drug culture, searching for the witnesses and a big shipment of heroin, aka horse, aka the gold mare. The only one standing in Fusco’s way is a lowly reporter on the crime beat…a guy who has more bourbon than blood running through his veins… chasing a story that could be his final byline.

I LIKE IT TOUGH by James Howard

She Was Sweet as Sin…and Twice as Deadly

It’s 1955 in Neon City, USA. The vice syndicate’s slimy tentacles stretched everywhere through the corrupt city and only reporter Steve Ashe knows the dark story behind the multi-million dollar traffic in dope and white slavery. And because he knows…he’s a walking dead man.

The second book in the Steve Ashe series.

“This powerful story of a reporter destroying a vicious dope ring is raw and electric with suspense from beginning to end.” Real Magazine

“Steve Ashe is a badass!” The Paperback Warrior Site

THE HOUSE ON Q STREET by Robert Dietrich (E. Howard Hunt)

“The Steve Bentley series simply rocks, a string of entertaining high-energy, hard-boiled romps that are perfect examples of the late fifties/early sixties paperback P.I.”
—The Thrilling Detective

Steve Bentley was a spy during the Korean War and now works as an accountant in Washington D.C. But his conservative job hides a brutal toughness…and a tendancy to get himself in trouble. He agrees to help Francie Ballou, a teenage addict and mother who is ensnared in a murder plot that involves the mob. To get her out of it, Steve may have to do some killing himself…

The third book in the Steve Bentley series, written by Robert Dietrich, a pseudonym for E. Howard Hunt, better known for his role in the Watergate scandal rather than for his great crime novels.

END OF A STRIPPER by Robert Dietrich (E. Howard Hunt)

Her nude body was on the display for one last time…in the morgue

It’s Washington D.C., 1959. Linda Lee was a stripper… a sultry Venus, cynically exhibiting her body to anyone who could pay the price. But to Steve Bentley, she would always be the honey-skinned child with hair the color of spun taffy, a warm-hearted kid with soft lips and soft body. And now she was dead. Looking down at her on a morgue slab, Steve swore he would find her killer and make him pay.

This is the second action-packed Steve Bentley novel by “Robert Dietrich,” the pseudonym for ex-CIA agent and convicted Watergate felon E. Howard Hunt, who wrote ten books in the series, nine of them between 1959 and 1962… and one more in 1999, Guilty Knowledge, under his own name.

“Hunt’s second Bentley thriller is an intriguing, pulse-pounding hardboiled crime-novel with all of the desirable genre tropes – sultry women, crooked men and the inevitable chase for wealth and power.” Paperback Warrior

“All in all, a pretty enjoyable series. There just aren’t enough hard-drinkin’, two-fisted, pistol-packin’ playboy accountants who make like P.I.s, if you ask me.”
—The Thrilling Detective

I’LL FIND YOU by Richard Himmel

Johnny Maguire is a struggling lawyer who falls into a passionate affair with the widow of one of his clients. She disappears… supposedly taking a suicide dive into the ocean. But Maquire doesn’t buy it and starts searching for her…a quest that pits him against the mob and spirals into a twisted story of sex and murder.

This was the first book in the Johnny Maguire series and the second title published by Fawcett’s famed Gold Medal paperback imprint.

“Richard Himmel was an outstanding writer, and “I’ll Find You” is a quality book. This is one of the better genre novels – call it romantic suspense- from the dawn of paperback originals. Johnny is a very funny narrator and a self-deprecating lawyer. Himmel wrote something likely to please readers of well-written hardboiled crime who are also comfortable with some romance and human drama in their stories.” The Paperback Warrior

“Gangsters are involved, and there’s a murder, but this isn’t really a crime novel. In its own twisted way, it’s a love story… with lots of raw emotion, with plenty of melodrama. And a really great final scene and line, very much in keeping with the character of Johnny Maguire. Himmel had something going for him, and it’s not a big surprise that the book was such a hit. My guess is that he didn’t plan to make Maguire a series character. He wasn’t cut out to be one. The book sold so many millions, however, that bringing him back must have proved irresistible.”
—Bill Crider