ALL 12 NOVELS by Richard Himmel, one of the greatest hard-boiled crime writers of the “Gold Medal” era, in one volume.
Throughout the 1950s, Richard worked by day as an interior designer and at night as a successful writer of paperback original crime novels. His first book, I’ll Find You was a massive, multi-million copy bestseller that almost single-handedly put Fawcett Crest’s famed “Gold Medal Paperbacks” on the literary map. He followed that book with four sequels in the “Johnny Maguire” series and four stand-alone novels.
I’ll Find You (Johnny Maguire #1) 1950 The Shame aka Soul of Passion & Strange Desires ) 1950 The Chinese Keyhole (Johnny Maguire #2) 1951 I Have Gloria Kirby (Johnny Maguire #3) 1951 The Sharp Edge 1952 Beyond Desire 1952 Two Deaths Must Die (Johnny Maguire #4) 1954 Cry of the Flesh 1955 The Rich and the Damned (Johnny Maguire #5) 1958
At this point, his career as an interior designer was exploding, making him a national (and soon international sensation), so he took almost 20 years away from the typewriter, before returning to print with a trio of big, sexy, global spy thrillers in 1977.
The 23rd Web 1977 Lions at Night 1979 Echo Chambers 1982
Four espionage thrillers by three masters of the genre on one action-packed volume
LIONS AT NIGHT * A TALENT FOR KILLING * CRY OF THE FLESH * BRUTE MADNESS
LIONS AT NIGHT by Richard Himmel
An undercover CIA agent living as a centerfold model and all-around hustler is the key player a deadly, global game of intrique and death where the players include a sexually-ravenous TV newswoman, a powerful Mafia don, and foreign assassins…. but who are actually the hunters and who are the prey for the lions at night?
“A taut thriller that builds to a blazing climax.” Publishers Weekly
A TALENT FOR KILLING by Ralph Dennis
Kane was a top CIA assassin until he suffered traumatic physical and psychological injuries in a mission that went horribly wrong. The Agency wiped his memory, gave him a new identity, and retired him to a life of mundane, anonymous domesticity. But his training, and his talent for killing, came back with a vengeance. He created a new life for himself as a killer-for-hire, righting wrongs for people who can’t find peace or justice any other way. He doesn’t know that his memories are fiction, or that he is always being watched, or that he’s been targeted for death by a rogue faction within the Agency.
“A breathless, lean noir thriller. Every line is razor sharp and without an ounce of fat. Jason Bourne fans will find a lot to like.” Publishers Weekly
CRY OF THE FLESH by Richard Himmel
Lazy playboy & lounge singer Buster Clayton, living in Italy on his ability to seduce wealthy women, is strong-armed by his brother, famous journalist Maxwell Payton, to help the daughter of a Russian diplomat defect with a cache of secret documents that will make an explosive story… and spark an international incident. But all is not what it seems, and soon Buster and the woman, a seductive and deadly cipher herself, are fleeing through Europe, running a gamut of sex, lies, betrayals, and certain death.
“A famous foreign correspondent with a story to get and a secret to hide, a fanatical girl communist who will stop at nothing to serve her cause, and a night club performer who gets way out of his depth add up to plenty of excitement,” Oakland Tribune
BRUTE MADNESS by Ledru Baker, Jr.
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.
Four critically acclaimed novels of international espionage, action and terror…all in one volume.
THE SPY IN A BOX * THE CHINESE KEYHOLE * ECHO CHAMBERS * THE 23RD WEB
THE SPY IN A BOX by Ralph Dennis
Will Hall is a CIA agent in a South American country on the brink of Civil War. But when the moderate, rebel leader that Hall covertly supported is assassinated, the spy resigns and retreats to a cabin in the North Carolina woods. His quiet, civilian life is shattered when an unknown adversary frames him for revealing Agency secrets, putting a kill-on-sight target on his back. Hall runs in a global chase to evade death, clear his name, and free himself from the flawless “box job” that could become his coffin.
“A breathless, lean noir thriller. Every line is razor sharp. Jason Bourne fans will find a lot to like.” Publishers Weekly
THE CHINESE KEYHOLE by Richard Himmel
It’s the 1950s, deep in the winter of the cold war. Ex-spy-turned-lawyer Johnny Maguire hadn’t visited Chinatown in a long time, and now he wasn’t there for the tourist attactions. Not that the Chinese Keyhole didn’t have plenty to offer–if you liked that sort of thin. Behind its pseudo-Oriental facade, the strip-club provided unusual entertainment for its off-beat clientele…and the performers were weirder than those who paid to watch them. Somewhere amongst the lust, sadism, and brutality there was the key to a Communist spy ring. And Johnny had to find it…through a mess of murder, mayhem, lust, and sadism he smashed his way to the Chinese Keyhole, where hell was set to music.
“Himmel was a great writer who knew how to keep a story moving. The Chinese Keyhole is sexy and exciting domestic spy fiction,” Paperback Warrior
ECHO CHAMBERS by Richard Himmel
It’s 1982. Angus MacGlendon is an American business tycoon targeted by the Chinese as a key player in their secret plot to become a global industrial and economic superpower…and they will do whatever it takes, from blackmail to violence, to get him to cooperate. He soon becomes a target of the CIA, KGB and spies from Taiwan. To survive, he must play a complicated game of international intrigue and terror with the fate of the world in the balance…
“An exciting novel of international intrigue and terror.” Cincinnati Enquirer
THE 23rd WEB by Richard Himmel
A cold-blooded Arab sheik and his army of psychopathic terrorists use blackmail, kidnapping and murder to force hundreds of rich Amercan Jews to stop giving money to Israel, part of a complex effort to economically cripple the Jewish nation. One man, Justice department attorney Peter Frankel, leads the fight against the insidious plot, drawing him into an inescapable web of twisted sex and brutal violence.
“Slick…there is action, conspiracy, plenty of sex. Himmel knows how to keep everything at a boil. He’s a good storyteller in the Arthur Hailey style. There is so much action that the reader is swept along. It’s like a B-movie of international intrigue. This book will amuse and entertain you.” The New York Times
A heart-racing thriller, packed with copious sex, international intrique, and unrelenting suspense
An undercover CIA agent living as a centerfold model and all-around hustler is the key player a deadly, global game of intrique and death where the players include a sexually-ravenous TV newswoman, a powerful Mafia don, and foreign assassins…. but who are actually the hunters and who are the prey for the lions at night?
“A taut thriller that builds to a blazing climax.” Publishers Weekly
A nightclub singer becomes an unwilling spy in a high-stakes, cold war plot in Richard Himmel’s action-packed, espionage classic, back in print for the first time in over 60 years.
Ne’er-do-well playboy & lounge singer Buster Clayton, living in Italy on his ability to seduce wealthy women, is strong-armed by his brother, famous journalist Maxwell Payton, to help the daughter of a Russian diplomat defect with a cache of secret documents that will make an explosive story… and spark an international incident. But all is not what it seems, and soon Buster and the woman, a seductive and deadly cipher herself, are fleeing through Europe, running a gamut of sex, lies, betrayals, and certain death.
“A famous foreign correspondent with a story to get and a secret to hide, a fanatical girl communist who will stop at nothing to serve her cause, and a night club performer who gets way out of his depth add up to plenty of excitement,” Oakland Tribune
“Richard Himmel was an outstanding writer… 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
“Intrigue to satisfy the most demanding reader.” Booklist
ECHO CHAMBERS is back… Richard Himmel’s eerily prescient thriller that foretold today’s rise of China, and the power they would exert over the world. What was once fiction has become a terrifying reality.
It’s 1982. Angus MacGlendon is an American business tycoon targeted by the Chinese as a key player in their secret plot to become a global industrial and economic superpower…and they will do whatever it takes, from blackmail to violence, to get him to cooperate. He soon becomes a target of the CIA, KGB and spies from Taiwan. To survive, he must play a complicated game of international intrigue and terror with the fate of the world in the balance…
“An exciting novel of international intrigue and terror.” Cincinnati Enquirer
“A novel of intrigue and espionage…(the characters) are leathered, unquenchable, sexually cruel people who apply their erotic meanness to the spy games they play… their passion is always entwined with the fates of whole nations. International affairs seem to be synchronized with the protagonists’ abilities to achieve simultaneous orgasm. High-level espionage becomes an attempt to block such a climax. CIA-tus interrutus , if you will. The action is there, the good guys are defined, skulls and gullets are endangered at every turn. The fate of the world hangs by a thread.” Chicago Tribune
“Slick…there is action, conspiracy, plenty of sex. Himmel knows how to keep everything at a boil. He’s a good storyteller in the Arthur Hailey style. There is so much action that the reader is swept along. It’s like a B-movie of international intrigue. This book will amuse and entertain you.” The New York Times
A cold-blooded Arab sheik and his army of psychopathic terrorists use blackmail, kidnapping and murder to force hundreds of rich Amercan Jews to stop giving money to Israel, part of a complex effort to economically cripple the Jewish nation. One man, Justice department attorney Peter Frankel, leads the fight against the insidious plot, drawing him into an inescapable web of twisted sex and brutal violence.
“Kinky, muscular and menacing,” Vogue Magazine
“The simplicity of Himmel’s plot is what makes his book fascinating. ..and it all seems very plausible. The characters are believable (with) large doses of sex sprinkled liberally throughout.” Berkeley Gazette
“Notable for its ingenuity…the conflict is entertaining as the terrorists and American supporters of Israel face each other in a battle of nerves and wills.”South Bend Tribute
“A surprising climax.” Tampa Tribune
“The pace of the action is steady and the wind-up is satisfying.” Publishers Weekly
Four brilliant, wildly acclaimed novels of cold war espionage and unrelenting suspense.
I KILLED STALIN * I SEE RED * RUN FOR YOUR LIFE * SEASON OF ASSASSINS
I KILLED STALIN by Sterling Noel
A covert, American agency known as “Bureau X” gives U.S. Naval Intelligence agent Alexis Bodine a new face, a new identity, and a suicide mission — infiltrate the Soviet government as a spy, work his way up to Stalin, and assassinate him before World War III begins.
“The high adventure read of the year, possibly even the decade.” King Features Syndicate
I SEE RED by Sterling Noel
It’s 1955. Pete LaSalle is a retired spy who is recruited by a secret U.S. counter-espionage agency to find a rogue atomic scientist with a troubling, personal connection to his past. The action rockets from Florida to New York, and on to Mexico. Along the way, LaSalle is framed for murder and teams up with his ex-wife to stop a horrific plot in a race-against-time that climaxes in a breathtaking finale of non-stop, pulse-pounding action.
“An awesome work of mid-century action-adventure fiction. Any reader looking for an exciting paperback will find that I SEE RED definitely delivers the goods. The bulk of the book is extremely violent and hard-boiled as hell. ” The Paperback Warrior
RUN FOR YOUR LIFE by Sterling Noel
Banker Randall McCarey is an extremely dangerous ex-spy, skilled in handling a variety of weapons and lethal women, who is drafted by the CIA for a secret mission in France tied to his work in counter-espionage during the war… and who is targeted for death from the moment he lands.
“Tops in spy-suspense stories” New York Journal-American
SEASON OF ASSASSINS by Geoffrey Wagner
World War II is over but the terror remains for one guilty officer stained with the blood of his own men…and stalked by an enemy obsessed with violent revenge. Only one other man knew the crimes of Philip Stevens… who had shot one of his own soldiers during a raid behind enemy lines in Africa, knowingly sent to other men straight into German fire, and faked his way out of battle into a hospital, where he perverted the tenderness of love-starved nurse to his own, desperate needs. And while Stevens struggles to cover his ugly tracks, the sole witness to his cowardice relentlessly pursues him in a chilling, suspense thriller that leads to a stunning climax.
The Year – 1959. The place – Inside Russia. The Plot – Kill the Red Dictator.
A covert, American agency known as “Bureau X” gives U.S. Naval Intelligence agent Alexis Bodine a new face, a new identity, and a suicide mission — infiltrate the Soviet government as a spy, work his way up to Stalin, and assassinate him before World War III begins.
At the time this controversial novel was published in 1951, I KILLED STALIN was a daring, “near future” thriller, billed by the publisher as a “great fictional account of espionage and high adventure that throbs with the urgency of tomorrow’s headlines.” It was a high-wire act for author Sterling Noel that polarized critics, who either heaped him with praise and lashed him with scorn (for example, Harrison Smith, the President of the prestigious The Saturday Review of Literature called it “a barbarity…there may be others, besides this reviewer, who wish that it was never written. The book can be used by Russian propaganda to perpetuate the libel throught the world that we are brutalized warmongers.” Now it’s an exciting read and, instead of being a futuristic thriller, it’s an unusual time capsule of post-War America in the throes of the cold war.
Praise for I KILLED STALIN
“The high adventure reading of the year, possibly even the decade.” King Features Syndicate
“A rip-roaring adventure novel. The suspense is real.” The Des Moines Register
“Excellently-conceived and executed plot, a tale so convincingly told that one loses sight of the fact that it is fiction, so completely absorbing that a reader stays glued to the pages to the final word of the final chapter. A grand novel.” Montgomery Advertiser
“A bang-up job in both action and suspense.” San Francisco Call-Bulletin
“An awesome work of mid-century action-adventure fiction. Any reader looking for an exciting paperback will find that I SEE RED definitely delivers the goods. The bulk of the book is extremely violent and hard-boiled as hell. ” The Paperback Warrior
It’s 1955. Pete LaSalle is a retired spy who is recruited by a secret U.S. counter-espionage agency to find a rogue atomic scientist with a troubling, personal connection to his past. The action rockets from Florida to New York, and on to Mexico. Along the way, LaSalle is framed for murder and teams up with his ex-wife to stop a horrific plot in a race-against-time that climaxes in a breathtaking finale of non-stop, pulse-pounding action.
