After being released from the Elmira reformatory Mitch (the central character of Cry Tough ) has two ways to go. He could return to his family who loved him dearly, find a job and marry the girl who loved him. His other choice is the flashy, dangerous life as a hood with big risks and big rewards- cars, women, rich food and fancy apartments. Would he settle for the security of a job and family or would he take the road from which there was no turning back? In a classic story, Irving Shulman presents the struggle of one man. The allure of his life in the underworld, the sobering reality of his home life, what he really loves, what he really wants and how each element in his fragmented reality draws on him.

From the the Academy Award]-nominated screenwriter of "Breakfast at Tiffanys" and "The Manchurian Candidate" comes a story unavailable for almost 50 years. A New York literary agent in love with a Hollywood starlet risks his life to uncover the secret behind a Nobel Prize-winning authors lost final manuscript.

When TV star Suzannah Piper is killed in a tragic car accident, many publicly grieve but few genuinely mourn. But investigative journalist Lucy Strong mourns. When Lucy first arrived in London, it was Suzannah who helped her realize her dream. But as Lucy starts to uncover the secret life that Suzannah kept even from her, she realizes that her friend was playing a dangerous game, and soon her own life is under threat. . . "From the Paperback edition.

With an introduction by Jonathan Coe 1930s King's Cross, London. When aspiring film actress Estella Lamare is found dead on the cutting-room floor of a London film studio, Cameron McCabe finds himself at the centre of a police investigation. There are multiple suspects, multiple confessors and, as more people around him die, McCabe begins to perform his own amateur sleuth-work, followed doggedly by the mysterious Inspector Smith. But then, abruptly, McCabe's account ends . . . Who is Cameron McCabe? Is he victim? Murderer? Novelist? Joker? And if not McCabe, who is the author of The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor ?

New York City, the early 30's. A man is poisoned on a crowded streetcar during rush hour. Everyone saw him die, but no one saw the killer! And far too many people had good reason to hate Longstreet. The few clues lead up to a blind alley, and District Attorney Bruno and Inspector Thumm pay a call on Drury Lane. Drury Lane! Retired Shakespearean actor. Matinee idol. Master of disguise. Amateur sleuth who finds "crime the highest refinement of human drama." Ellery Queen's most flamboyant creation. Seated amid the splendor of the vast medieval halls of his castle on the Hudson, Drury Lane hears the story. Almost at once, he knows who the murderer is, but refuses to reveal his identity until he has sufficient evidence for the police to arrest him. In the great tradition, all the clues are scrupulously presented to you, the reader. Can you solve the case before the police?

The Big Fix by Ed Lacy Author of the 1958 Edgar Award-winning novel Room to Swing! On the night Irish Tommy Cork's murder was planned, nothing very much out of the ordinary happened. Tommy was in the ring, taking a pasting-as usual. Back to the ropes, almost sitting on the second strand, Tommy crouched, gloved hands up in front of his face like a leather fence. He was fighting a strong youngster who was now whaling away with both hands in a moment of wild enthusiasm. Most of his blows were blocked, or ducked by Tommy's weaving head, but those few that didn't miss landed with loud thud sounds on the kidneys, head, or in the stomach, visibly shaking up the pale "old man."

Mayor Koch takes time out of his busy schedule to arrange for a friend to use the City Hall chapel for her daughter's wedding. But no sooner have vows been exchanged than the bopdy of a much-hated land developer is found brutally murdered in the alcove of the chapel. When he finds himself on the list of suspects, the Mayor must fight to clear his name. Look for Koch's new hardcover, Murder on Broadway coming in July.

Investigating the death of a philosophy professor at a fashionable northern California university, Aaron Asherfield interrogates the radical--and somewhat ridiculous--racial, sexual and intellectual factions at the college, each of which harbors a secret about the dead man.

Book by Litwin, Bob, Silverman, Chip

Erast Fandorin, our erstwhile gentleman sleuth and hero has gone off to serve in the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78) so as to forget his personal sorrows. Captured by the Turks, Fandorin wins his freedom by beating his captor at backgammon. He then encounters a naive, young "progressive" Russian woman trying to join her "husband" at the Russian headquarters. It's here where the action really takes off. Fandorin is requested to investigate certain devious goings-on, and he eventually exposes a well-known French journalist as a Turkish agent (who was one of the children raised by Lady Astair's establishments in The Winter Queen). The new Fandorin thriller is another compelling page-turner from Boris Akunin.

General Khrapov, newly appointed Governor-General of Siberia and soon-to-be Minister of the Interior, is murdered in his official saloon carriage on his way from St Petersburg to Moscow.The killer, disguised as Fandorin, leaves a knife thrust up to the hilt in his victim's chest and escapes through the window of the carriage. Can Fandorin escape suspicion?A battle of wills and ideals, revolutionaries and traditionalists and good versus evil.

"In 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visits the grave of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, looking for a sign, a signal, an answer to an enigma that has haunted him since childhood: Was Bach murdered by a famous oculist? And years later, was Handel a victim of the same doctor? Allegro follows his investigation, from the salons of London to the streets of Paris, recreating an enthralling and turbulent time, full of rogues and brilliant composers, charlatans and presumptuous nobles. Running parallel to this search is the rise of Mozart, his knowledge and fame, his trials and losses"--

Two feature-length stories in one volume! Video games can get too realistic, as the flying teenager, Go Girl! discovers in "Prisoners of the Machine," when she and her friends find themselves trapped inside a computer, menaced by giant anime-robots! And in "Double Trouble," Go Girl!'s arch-enemies create a robot that looks just like her, except that it has the mind of a master criminal! How can our heroine convince the cops that she didn't rob that bank, when everyone saw her do it? Plus, Go Girl!'s sidekick, Haseena, tired of always being rescued by the flying teen, takes up sleuthing herself in "Haseena Ross, Girl Detective."

Esther of the Singing Hands is Perach's Sweetheart, a young and beautiful musician with a Girl Next Door image. When her violin is stolen after a concert in the capital city, she doesn't expect the queen herself to show up, intent upon solving the mystery. But Queen Shulamit -- lesbian, intellectual, and mother of the six-month-old crown princess -- loves to play detective. With the help of her legendary bodyguard Rivka and her dragon, and with the support of her partner Aviva the Chef, Shulamit turns her mind toward the solution -- which she quickly begins to suspect involves the use of illegal magic that could threaten the safety of her citizens.

VISIONS by Richard A. Lupoff is a collection of fantasy and horror short stories selected from decades of writing. The author consistently shows himself to be a master storyteller, and these short stories are fine examples, containing psychic detective tales, stories of Lovecraftian horror, and other fantasy and horror tales.

When Mycroft Holmes is murdered, it is up to retired shadow detective Smith to track down his killer, leading him to stumble onto the greatest conspiracy of his life. Young Lucy Westerna, Holmes' protégé, must follow her own path to the truth, while on the other side of the world, a young Harry Houdini must face his greatest feat of escape -- death itself. As their paths converge the body count mounts up, the entire world is under threat, and in a foreboding castle in the mountains of Transylvania a mysterious old man weaves a spider's web of secrets and lies.

The great game. When Mycroft Holmes is murdered, it is up to retired shadow detective Smith to track down his killer, leading him to stumble onto the greatest conspiracy of his life. Young Lucy Westerna, Holmes' protégé, must follow her own path to the truth, while on the other side of the world, a young Harry Houdini must face his greatest feat of escape -- death itself. As their paths converge the body count mounts up, the entire world is under threat, and in a foreboding castle in the mountains of Transylvania a mysterious old man weaves a spider's web of secrets and lies.

Crime-writer Charles Applegate decided to set his second novel in a progressive school. Taking a job at Bramley Hall to see what such a school was like 'from the inside, ' Applegate found to his dismay that he was expected to do rather more than just people-watch. And when a murder took place on his first night there, his skills as a detective writer were called upon as well. But real-life crime was to prove very different from its fictional counterpart...

To research a new detective story, Charles Applegate takes a post in a progressive school of misfits, set deep in the English countryside. The game turns serious when a fellow teacher is murdered and a weird variety of criminals seem convinced that Charles has something they want.