<div><B>Two honeymooners take a stranger onto their yacht&mdash;with terrifying consequences&mdash;in this &ldquo;superb&rdquo; psychological thriller (<I>The New York Times</I>).</B><BR />  Rae and Ingram are nineteen days out of the Panama Canal, sailing slowly across the wide, flat Pacific on the <I>Saracen</I>, when they find Hughie Warriner in his dinghy. He was on a pleasure cruise in his yacht, the <I>Orpheus</I>, he says, when food poisoning killed his passengers and his ship began to sink. After an alleged ten days of desperately fighting to stay afloat he spied the <I>Saracen</I>, and rowed to his salvation. Finding the stranded yacht, against Warriner&rsquo;s wishes, Ingram boards the stranded <I>Orpheus</I>. There he finds Warriner&rsquo;s passengers&mdash;very much alive, and hungry for revenge against the man who attacked them and left them to drown. Ingram tries to get back to his ship, but is too late. Warriner escapes with his yacht, taking Rae hostage, and Ingram hasno means to save them but tattered sails, a sinking ship, and rage that burns hotter than the merciless Pacific sun.</div>

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Dead Calm

<div><b>A widow and a charter captain scour the ocean for a stolen yacht</b><BR>When Ingram lands in Miami, he doesn&rsquo;t even have time to finish his bath before the police come knocking. The out-of-work charter captain has just returned from Nassau, where he was looking to buy a boat on behalf of a millionaire. But the day after he toured the seventy-foot <i>Dragoon</i>, his &ldquo;millionaire&rdquo; disappeared, and the yacht went with him. Ingram convinces the cops that he was only an unwitting accomplice in stealing the boat, and offers to help recover it for the owner, a beautiful widow with secrets of her own. He only has eight thousand square miles of open ocean to search. Finding the ship is the easy part. Escaping it will be harder, as Ingram finds himself caught in a tangle of lust, smuggling, and murder, surrounded by endless miles of the most beautiful water on earth.</div>

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Aground

<div><B>Edgar Award Finalist: A sailor stranded in the Pacific Ocean finds there are a million ways to die</B><BR /> His life in pieces, Harry Goddard buys a thirty-two-foot sloop and sets out to sail the Pacific. He is a thousand miles from anywhere when his craft strikes an unseen object, and begins taking water. For all his desperate efforts, he cannot save her, and Harry is forced into his life raft, to drift without food, water, or shelter from the sun. He is near death when the <I>Leander</I> rescues him. But by the time his trip is over, he&rsquo;ll wish he&rsquo;d taken his chances in the open water. A tramp freighter sailing under the Panamanian flag, the <I>Leander</I> is en route to the Philippines when its crew spots Harry and takes him aboard. But as he regains his strength, Harry uncovers a murderous conspiracy that could destroy the ship that saved him.</div>

And the Deep Blue Sea

<div><b>A son searches for the men who killed his mysterious father</b><BR>Even at sixty-six, Gunnar Romstead was a tough old salt. It took several men to bring him down, and even after they&rsquo;d bound his feet and hands he was still a threat. But finally the man who&rsquo;d survived waterfront brawls, World War II, and countless stormy nights at sea died on his knees&mdash;shot through the back of the head.  Looking for answers, his son Eric comes to the barren California town where Gunnar breathed his last. He hardly knew the old man, but he can&rsquo;t believe his father was killed in a botched drug deal. Somewhere in California is a massive shipment of heroin and a quarter of a million dollars, and if Eric finds them he will uncover the truth. But for a boy who grew up loving his father from afar, the truth may hurt even more than a bullet. </div>

Man on a Leash

<div><b>Raised at the racetrack, a boy comes to live on a Texas farm</b><BR>Billy doesn&rsquo;t know how to read a book, but give him a racing form and he can tell you everything about a pony that you&rsquo;d ever want to know. He and his father live on the road, traveling from Aqueduct to Hialeah and back again, until an overzealous Welfare lady demands they settle somewhere more wholesome than the track. Not knowing anyplace wholesome, Billy&rsquo;s father takes him to Texas instead, to live on his brother Sagamore&rsquo;s farm. There Billy meets bootleggers, gangsters, and the beautiful Miss Choo-Choo Caroline, a Chicago stripper who is wearing nothing but a tiny, diamond-encrusted G-string when she disappears. Uncle Sagamore, an enterprising brute, sees this as a chance for profit. For a boy with gambling in his veins, there could be quite a lot to learn.</div>

The Diamond Bikini

<div><b>The score would be an easy one&mdash;if it weren&rsquo;t for the women involved</b><BR>Out of work and dead broke, Lee Scarborough is a long way from his days as a football hero when he meets the sunbathing Diana James&mdash;an innocent-looking creature with a plan to make a fortune. A few months&rsquo; back, her lover embezzled $120,000 from a bank, but disappeared before she could get her hands on the cash. The police think he&rsquo;s fled the state, but Diana is sure he&rsquo;s dead, and knows who killed him: his wife, Madelon Butler, a sadistic drunk who is capable of anything. The cash is inside Madelon&rsquo;s house, waiting to be stolen a third time, and all Diana needs is a patsy. Scarborough fits the bill. The plan sails along smoothly until Scarborough meets Mrs. Butler. By the time his luck runs out, he&rsquo;d rather face a dozen hulking linebackers than these two beauties, who have been driven to a frenzy by jealousy, greed, and lust.</div>

A Touch of Death

<div><b>A small town is doomed by jealousy, greed, and a shared love of hunting</b><BR>In the backwoods town of Carthage, there isn&rsquo;t much for the leading citizens to do but drink, sleep, and shoot. John Warren is preparing for an early morning duck hunt when he hears two shotgun blasts&mdash; only later does he learn they were the sound of Dan Roberts&rsquo;s death. Although it appears the handsome young man killed himself, Warren and the police are smart enough to realize that suicide victims seldom shoot twice. That night, a drunk woman calls Warren&rsquo;s house, offering a motive for the crime he didn&rsquo;t commit. Roberts was sleeping with Warren&rsquo;s wife&mdash;and he wasn&rsquo;t her only lover. Warren didn&rsquo;t kill Roberts, but as the rumors begin to swirl, he may wish that he had. In a town where every man is a crack shot, shooting a rival isn&rsquo;t murder. It&rsquo;s target practice.<BR>&ldquo;[Williams] is just about as good as they come.&rdquo; &mdash;<i>The New York Times</i> &ldquo;Relying on wit, humor and ingenious plotting, Williams&rsquo;s characters constantly attempt to outwit the system.&rdquo; &mdash;Woody Haut, author of <i>Pulp Culture</i> &ldquo;One of the neglected hardboiled geniuses . . . his novels were perfect little gems.&rdquo; &mdash;Joe R. Lansdale, author of <i>Savage Season</i><BR>Charles Williams (1909&ndash;1975) was one of the preeminent authors of American crime fiction. Born in Texas, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the US Merchant Marine, serving for ten years before leaving to work in the electronics industry. At the end of World War II, Williams began writing fiction while living in San Francisco. The success of his backwoods noir <i>Hill Girl</i> (1951) allowed him to quit his job and write fulltime. Williams&rsquo;s clean and somewhat casual narrative style distinguishes his novels&mdash;which range from hard-boiled, small-town noir to suspense thrillers set at sea and in the Deep South. Although originally published by pulp fiction houses, his work won great critical acclaim, with <i>Hell Hath No Fury</i> (1953) becoming the first paperback original to be reviewed by legendary <i>New York Times</i> critic Anthony Boucher. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, such as <i>Dead Calm </i>(published in 1963) and <i>Don&rsquo;t Just Stand There!</i> (published in 1966), for which Williams wrote the screenplay. Williams died in California in 1975. </div>

Confidentially Yours

<div><B>A small Texas town heats up as a drifter turns to crime in this &ldquo;ingeniously plotted&rdquo; tale of guilt, greed, and lust that inspired the Dennis Hopper film (<I>The New York Times</I>).</B><BR />  In a town so small that Main Street is only three blocks long, there isn&rsquo;t a lot to do&mdash;other than work, ogle women, and think about fast ways to get rich. After a year of aimless wandering, Madox has landed here, nearly broke and with no prospects but a dead-end job selling cars to yokels. Until one afternoon a fire at the burger joint draws the attention of everyone in town&mdash;including the men who are supposed to be guarding the bank. It&rsquo;s almost too good to be true, but there it is&mdash;$15,000 lying around, watched by no one. Now all Madox needs is a little nerve and a second distraction. And while one woman will give him the nerve, another will make him ready to kill.</div>

The Hot Spot

<div><b>Aboard a ghost ship, sailors discover a tale of treasure, lust, and murder</b><BR>When the tanker finds the yacht, she is far from land, adrift in the middle of the Caribbean. No one is onboard, but the hold is stuffed with cash, the coffeepot is still warm, and a hint of perfume hangs in the air. The passengers have vanished, but the ship&rsquo;s log tells a chilling story of the madness peculiar to the search for sunken riches. The journal was written by salvage diver Bill Manning, who was out of money and out of luck when he met a statuesque Swede named Shannon. She and her husband hire him to sail them to the Yucatan coast, to find a plane that went down carrying untold wealth. But a pair of gangsters is pursuing them, hoping for a crack at the treasure as well. For the sake of Shannon&rsquo;s beauty Manning will chase this fortune, knowing it will take him to the height of riches, or to the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. </div>

Scorpion Reef

<div><b>A beautiful fraudster gives a drifter a chance at an irresistible score</b><BR>Jerry Forbes, on the run in Fort Lauderdale, is careful not to tell Marian Forsyth his real name. But Marian already knows his secrets. She&rsquo;s been following him since Miami Beach, fascinated by this handsome drifter since the first time she heard his voice. Finally she tells him the truth: Together, they&rsquo;re going to steal a fortune from a rich sap named Harris Chapman. The plan is simple&mdash;all they have to do is ask.  Marian chose Jerry because he could be Chapman&rsquo;s double. With a little coaching, he&rsquo;ll be able to walk into the rich man&rsquo;s bank and take whatever he likes. But it&rsquo;s not long before the plan gets complicated, and Jerry is smart enough to know that when a heist turns sour, it&rsquo;s not the women who die.</div>

The Concrete Flamingo

<div><b>An engineer battles a small town to see his sister released from prison</b><BR>It takes Reno three days to get from Peru to the Gulf Coast, and when he gets to Waynesport he has only one stop to make: the city jail, where his sister is being held on a murder rap. The way Vickie tells it, she saw her husband having a drink with another woman, they quarreled, and she went to the bathroom. When she came out, he was shot through the back of the skull. The police believe every word of her story&mdash;except the part about who pulled the trigger. Her husband was in Waynesport looking for a crook named Rupert Conway, whom the local police do not seem towant found. To save his sister&rsquo;s neck, Reno must wade through corruption as fetid as the swamps that surround this hellish southern town, where the alligators aren&rsquo;t the only ones who are eager to kill.</div>

Go Home, Stranger

<div><b>Her husband in jail, a desperate young woman takes refuge among sharecroppers</b><BR>Once, Cass Neely&rsquo;s farm stretched across the entire valley, but decades of bad decisions and rotten luck have forced him to sell off nearly every inch. He and his son farm the meager remains of a once-great property, living in a grim downward spiral&mdash;until Cass&rsquo;s daughter-in-law, Joy, moves in. She&rsquo;s by far the most beautiful thing this county has ever seen, but she&rsquo;s flat broke since her husband, Sewell, was put away for armed robbery. She&rsquo;s also prickly, lazy, and vain&mdash;traits that don&rsquo;t sit well with hardscrabble living&mdash;and it isn&rsquo;t long before she starts to get a violent case of cabin fever.  As the rains bear down and the river starts to threaten the cotton, Sewell escapes from police custody and heads for home. Come hell or high water, the Neely family will stick together, even if it means disaster.</div>

Big City Girl

<div><b>An ex-football player and a crooked insurance man cook up a blackmail scheme</b><BR>Professional football player John Harlan is driving back from a lakeside cabin when a drunk driver named Cannon knocks him off the road. When he comes to, Harlan&rsquo;s leg is shattered and Cannon is dead. His career over, Harlan goes on a bender, and a few days after his hangover clears, he dives headfirst into a life of immorality. An insurance investigator named Purvis is checking into Cannon&rsquo;s death, hoping to avoid laying out $100,000 to his widow. He suspects Cannon may have survived the accident, only to be murdered while Harlan was unconscious&mdash;and the more he talks about it, the more Harlan believes it. They devisea plan to blackmail dear Mrs. Cannon, but if Harlan was a pro on the field, he&rsquo;s an amateur in the underworld. Next to what the lovely widow is going to do to him, football is a cakewalk.</div>

The Big Bite

<div><b>Pursued by the police, a desperate man fights to stay free&mdash;and stay alive</b><BR>It&rsquo;s raining hard when the man leaps off the train. He lands safely and creeps into town, praying he will find someplace to hide. It&rsquo;s nearly daylight, and the police are not far behind. He breaks into an unoccupied seaside cottage, and is overjoyed to find coffee, whiskey, and cigarettes. But before the fugitive can relax, the doorknob rattles. The police are at the door. Russell Foley, third mate on an oil tanker, is not a cop killer. But the night before he got into a fight with a police detective, and a few hours later the cop was found stabbed to death. Unable to explain himself, he bolts, hoping to evade the police and somehow find the real killer. But for a man who cannot stop running, justice can be a hard thing to find.</div>

Man on the Run

<div><b>Stranded in a small town, a stranger falls for a suspected murderess</b><BR>Bored, divorced, and unemployed, Chatham is on his way to the Gulf of Mexico when he passes through a small town by the river. It&rsquo;s a miserable little burg&mdash;four stoplights and not much else&mdash;and he&rsquo;s almost escaped it when a drunk&rsquo;s car darts out in front of him, causing a nasty fender-bender. The thought of three days waiting for his clunker to get fixed is a grim one, but though he doesn&rsquo;t know it, there won&rsquo;t be a dull minute. Chatham finds hospitality in the lovely form of Mrs. Langton, motel owner and local pariah. Seven months ago her husband was murdered, and though the police could find no evidence to support the theory, everyone in town is convinced she killed him. Now a string of anonymous threats have left her close to a nervous breakdown, and the violence is about to become real. In a town this small there&rsquo;s no room for secrets, but plenty of places to bury a corpse. </div>

Talk of the Town

<div><b>It&rsquo;s election season in Blossom County, and that means it&rsquo;s time for moonshine</b><BR>Educated at the racetrack, Billy has never had a firm grip on his ABCs, but he sure knows how to read a racing form. When a family court judge threatens to put the seven-year-old in a foster home, Billy and his father go to live in the countryside, at the wholesome little farm owned by Billy&rsquo;s Uncle Sagamore, where the air is pure, the grass is green, and the liquor from his hidden distillery is clear as water&mdash;and about 120 proof.  But pressure from the law has kept Sagamore&rsquo;s still silent, and the stash of white lightning is starting to dwindle. To get his home-brewing operation back underway, Sagamore needs a distraction&mdash;and there&rsquo;s none better than local politics. When Uncle Sagamore throws his weight into the Blossom County elections, democracy will never be the same.</div>

Charles Williams
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Books By Charles Williams (16 Books)