If you're Toussaint Moore, a private investigator from New York City, and a Negro, framed in your own city for a white man's murder, you are going to find it tricky sledding in a small Ohio town, close to the Kentucky border. But the small town was where Moore felt he had to be, to try to find proof for the police that he was innocent of the killing. Moore's problems had started in New York, when the publicity woman from a television show called You-Detective! came to ask him to shadow a man. The idea of the show was that the viewers were given information about a wanted man, and the first viewer to find the man and report him to the police won a reward. In short, it was a combination adventure and give-away show. Ed Lacy has written his most unusual story-a very exciting one, and one which handles with exceptional insight a Negro's experiences in a large northern city and a small, bordering-on-the-South town.

"An extravaganza . . . fertile invention and forceful style . . . Mr. Kersh's many admirers will undoubtedly devour this highly flavoured hotch-potch with avidity." - Julian Maclaren-Ross, Sunday Times "[F]irst-rate Kersh, richly peopled with the odd bit roles he sketches so well and written with style and individuality." - Anthony Boucher, New York Herald Tribune "Sometimes funny, sometimes nightmarish, always first-class entertainment." - Basil Davenport, New York Times Journalist George Oaks and his friend Albert Kemp, a mystery novelist, are on their way to meet their friend, the celebrated philosopher Dr. Monacelli. But when a clerical mix-up leads to their meeting the American gangster Monty Cello instead, Oaks and Kemp quickly find themselves caught up in a bizarre and dangerous plot involving a murdered reporter, a missing scientist, and a group of powerful madmen with a plan to destroy the world as we know it. It's a race against time as Oaks and Kemp must infiltrate the villains' stronghold and save humanity before it's too late! Equal parts hard-boiled crime novel and apocalyptic science fiction tale, The Great Wash (1953) is one of the most exciting novels by Gerald Kersh (1911-1968), who is best known for his classics Night and the City (1938) and Fowlers End (1957). Fowlers End and four volumes of Kersh's strange and brilliant short fiction are also available from Valancourt.

A collection of short stories:I. Ange MarieII. The modern marauderIII. The shrew of MadridIV. An ethical dilemmaV. The fugitive of Adelphie terraceVI. The battling pacifistVII. Mr Brown and the MadonnaVIII. The dancing GentlemanIX. With a dashX. The chateau of phantasies.Major Andrew Forester is a retired British Army officer, of no discernible occupation, who wanders about Europe, England and the United States in the 1920s. He is looking for adventure, but not outside the bounds of the acceptable. He is willing to skirt the law, but not break it. A bachelor, he has been unsuccessful in love, with a limited income. He stays in out-of-the-way hotels, and smaller pensions, and takes an occasional gamble on the tables at Monte Carlo. His peripatetic life style brings him in contact with scam artists, gold-diggers, art thieves, industrial spies,taxi dancers, and flappers. Sometimes he benefits from these associations, but at other times he is their victim. He does this all with style, impeccable clothing, and a humorous tolerance of human failings.

Two books in one! Murder in Paradise and The Coin of Adventure ''What is the meaning of 'whore?''' Ruita asked in Tahitian, anger rising in her voice. I didn't hear an answer because just then a hell of a fracas broke out at the poolside. Ruita and Kitty Merry were rolling on the white sand, punching and clawing at each other. The actress' halter was yanked off and Ruita's blouse was ripped to shreds. I ran over and pulled Ruita to her feet, blood on her gorgeous face from a deep scratch. Kitty had a puffed eye and there was blood on her over-red lips as she jumped up - bare breasts moving like two enormous pendulums - screaming words I hadn't heard in years. Much later, long after I had returned to the boat, a Papeete cop arrived looking for my Ruita. She had disappeared. And Kitty Merry had just been found murdered.

- 'An ingenious country house mystery... keeps the reader on tenterhooks from the very first page' NEW YORK TIMES - 'J. Jefferson Farjeon is quite unsurpassed for creepy skill in mysterious adventures' DOROTHY L. SAYERS - The much-revered crime writer J. Jefferson Farjeon's second crime novel back in print for the first time in almost a century. To Brambles, a dilapidated yet comfortable English country house, come the uninvited guests: a motley crew, who appear at the most unexpected hours and on the most impossible errands. Singly and in procession they arrive to trouble the calm of Ambrose Blythe, sexagenarian owner of Brambles, and of Peter Haslam, his house guest. Add to these an imperturbable butler, a tragic-eyed damsel and the super-logician Detective Grant to complete the ingredients of the perfect Golden Age of Crime story. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Jefferson Farjeon was born into a literary family in Hampstead, north west London in 1883. He was a prolific crime writer, writing over sixty novels over the course of thirty years, many published by William Collins & Sons and featuring in their hugely popular Collins Crime Club. Dorothy L. Sayers said of his work, 'every word is entertaining.' His best-known novel (and play) NUMBER 17, was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock. He died in 1955. PRAISE FOR J. JEFFERSON FARJEON: 'Jefferson Farjeon writes thrills enhanced by good writing, good humour, and good character sketches' THE SUNDAY TIMES; 'A Sherlock Holmes novel of the first degree' NEW YORK POST; 'This delightful writer delivers the goods once again' THE DAILY HERALD; '"Mystery in White" is the perfect book for a winter's evening, a cosy chair and an open fire' THE DAILY MAIL; 'An undiluted joy... Ben is the plum of the book; his personality impresses itself upon the imagination' LIVERPOOL POST; 'A top-hole thriller by a writer who knows his job' THE DAILY EXPRESS.