<div>A weekend getaway among friends becomes an occasion for murder in this &ldquo;entertaining tantalizer&rdquo; of a whodunit (Kirkus Reviews). Eccentric brothers Frank and George Faulkner are hosting a weekend house party at the legendary Ravensmoor estate. The guests include a pair of struggling newlyweds, a brutal criminal attorney, a fading chorus girl, and a freeloading couple who live off the fat of their friends. All of them are acquaintances save for a mousy stranger who&rsquo;s more shadow than man. Then, one by one, each visitor makes the same startling discovery: George&rsquo;s corpse snuggled under the covers of his bed. It could&rsquo;ve been another of his tasteless practical jokes&mdash;if not for the gaping wound in his neck. Why everyone&rsquo;s been assembled to partake in a murder is only the first mystery. Because the party at Ravensmoor is just getting started . . . </div>

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The Man Who Slept All Day

<div>&ldquo;The Dorothy Parker of detective fiction&rdquo; (William Ruehlmann) ghostwrites for silver-screen sleuth George Sanders in this &ldquo;thriller with laughs on the side&rdquo;(New York Herald-Tribune). The snarky and debonair actor George Sanders (who would go on to win an Academy Award for his performance in All About Eve) has had enough of playing a B-movie detective in the Falcon film series. He&rsquo;s thrilled to land a role against type in an epic historical adventure opposite the hottest bombshell in Hollywood. Then, as the shooting begins . . . the shooting begins. During an all-too-authentic action scene, a background sap in a glue-on beard takes a real bullet. A tragic accident, or something more sinister? Everyone now expects the big-screen sleuth to draw on his detection skills. But those murders were scripted. Being a pro, he&rsquo;s tempted to improvise&mdash;especially when he learns the victim was much more than some hapless extra. Unfortunately, the slug is traced back to Sanders&rsquo;s gun, a key reel of evidence disappears, and the gentleman rogue himself becomes the star suspect. For Sanders, finding the real culprit in a world of illusion is going to be the most exacting performance of his life&mdash;right up until the killer fadeout. Having written two films in the Falcon series&mdash;The Falcon&rsquo;s Brother and The Falcon in Danger&mdash;Craig Rice was a natural ghostwriter for capturing George Sanders&rsquo;s trademark tone, a stiff dry cocktail of snark and sophistication. The result? &ldquo;Lots of fun&rdquo; (The New York Times). </div>

Crime on My Hands

<div>A Chicago lawyer must save his big-city friends from small-town corruption in this &ldquo;triumphantly rowdy&rdquo; mystery (Time) that&rsquo;s also &ldquo;exciting [and] hard as nails&rdquo; (The New Yorker). When club owner Jake Justus and his wife, Helene, flee a sweltering Chicago summer for rural Jackson County, Wisconsin, they expect sweet-as-apple-pie locals and calm lakes for fishing. Instead, they become the bait: When the town&rsquo;s two-term senator is shot to death, Jake and Helene are held as material witnesses&mdash;and, if the fathead sheriff has anything to say about it, suspects. Attorney John J. Malone comes to help out his friends, but in a town where everybody knows everybody&mdash;be it by blood, sex, or church socials&mdash;only out-of-town strangers are fit to be accused. Oh yeah? So what&rsquo;s their motive for the second murder? Or the third? And the fourth? To find out, Malone will turn Jackson County upside down&mdash;with pleasure&mdash;and give it a good shake. It might be easier than finding a decent bar! &ldquo;The Dorothy Parker of detective fiction&rdquo; is back with the unbeatable trio of sharp-witted attorney John J. Malone and snarky high-society couple Jake and Helene (William Ruehlmann). Trial by Fury is the 5th book in the John J. Malone Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

Trial by Fury

<div>From the &ldquo;grand dame of mystery mixed with screwball comedy&rdquo;: The children of a widowed mystery writer play amateur sleuths and matchmakers (Ed Gorman, Ellery Queen Award&ndash;winning author). When your mom&rsquo;s a mystery writer, a talent for detection is only natural. So when the three children of prolific whodunit author Marion Carstairs become material witnesses in a neighborhood murder, they launch their own investigation. And why not? They know everything about baffling mysteries from reading their mother&rsquo;s books, the publicity could do wonders for her sales, and then she and a handsome detective could fall in love. It&rsquo;s too perfect for words. Marion&rsquo;s too busy wrapping up the loose ends of her latest book for the inconvenience of a real crime. But what&rsquo;s surfacing in the shadows of the house next door is not quite as predictable as fiction: accusations of racketeering, kidnapping and blackmail; a slain stripper; a grieving but slippery husband; a wily French artist; a panicky movie star; and a cop who&rsquo;s working Marion&rsquo;s last nerve. If the kids are game, Marion decides she is too&mdash;in between chapters, at least. Besides, this whole dangerous bloody mess could turn out to be a source of inspiration! This stand-alone mystery was the basis for the classic 1946 comedy starring Randolph Scott and Peggy Ann Garner and &ldquo;makes clear why Craig Rice remains one of the best writers of mystery fiction&rdquo; (Jeffery Marks, author of Who Was That Lady?). </div>

Home Sweet Homicide

<div>&ldquo;The grand dame of mystery mixed with screwball comedy&rdquo; introduces her popular, sharp-witted Chicago lawyer/sleuth (Ed Gorman, Ellery Queen Award&ndash;winning author). John J. Malone, defender of the guilty, is notorious for getting his culpable clients off. It&rsquo;s the innocent ones who are problems. Like Holly Inglehart, accused of piercing the black heart of her well-heeled and tyrannical aunt Alexandria with a lovely Florentine paper cutter. No one who knew the old battle-ax liked her, but Holly&rsquo;s prints were found on the murder weapon. Plus, she had a motive: She was about to be disinherited for marrying a common bandleader. With each new lurid headline, Holly&rsquo;s friends and supporters start to rally. There&rsquo;s North Shore debutante Helene Brand; Holly&rsquo;s groom&rsquo;s press agent, Jake Justus; the madam of a local brothel, and Alexandria&rsquo;s hand-wringing servants. But not one of them can explain the queerest bent to the crime: At the time of the murder, every clock in the Inglehart mansion stopped dead. And that&rsquo;s only the first twist in a baffling case of &ldquo;aunty-cide&rdquo;&mdash;because Alexandria won&rsquo;t be the last to die. Making his debut in this fun and funny novel, Craig Rice&rsquo;s one-of-a-kind Chicago attorney is &ldquo;an inspired creation . . . an unapologetic champion of the defense bar . . . a defender of the guilty whose contempt for society outstrips his contempt for criminals&rdquo; (Jon L. Breen, Edgar Award&ndash;winning author). Eight Faces at Three is the 1st book in the John J. Malone Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

Eight Faces at Three

<div>A Chicago cad blackmails a torch singer in this thriller: &ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t all murders be as funny as those concocted by Craig Rice?&rdquo; (The New York Times) Radio star Nelle Brown is known coast-to-coast for her sweet and sultry voice. But her press agent and manager, Jake Justus, is familiar with another side of the darling of the airwaves: her crackpot marriage to a penniless tycoon, disastrous string of lovers, and propensity for flying into spectacular fits of rage. Now, it appears she&rsquo;s being burned by an ex-flame who&rsquo;s holding her scandalous love letters for ransom. The missives could ruin Nelle&rsquo;s career, but so could the scoundrel&rsquo;s murder. For Nelle and Jake, reporting the crime is out of the question&mdash;not to mention pointless, as the corpse has vanished along with the incriminating evidence. John J. Malone, Chicago&rsquo;s rumpled yet resourceful legal beagle is tasked with finding both. But as every new unscrupulous lead turns up dead, Malone isn&rsquo;t sure whether Nelle is orchestrating a killer cover-up to save her pretty neck or if she&rsquo;s about to belt out her own swan song. The first writer of detective fiction to appear on the cover of Time magazine, former crime reporter &ldquo;Craig Rice was a funny lady, [and] a good writer undeservedly forgotten . . . She&rsquo;s worth remembering&rdquo; (Jon L. Breen, Edgar Award&ndash;winning author). The Corpse Steps Out is the 1st book in the John J. Malone Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

The Corpse Steps Out

<div>A midway murder sends a terrified eyewitness running for her life&mdash;from a cop, a con, and her own secrets&mdash;in this mystery by the author of the John J. Malone series. The best carnival barker in the business couldn&rsquo;t have drawn a crowd like the one now gathered around the Ferris wheel on the pier. In one of the cabs, still rocking with the ocean breeze, is a dead man&mdash;a bloody knife protruding from his back. Why the notorious gambling boss Jerry McGurn was killed is no mystery. Who did it is. And there&rsquo;s only one probable witness to the crime. As bystanders go, Ellen Haven comes across as innocent: pretty enough, plus her blue eyes well up with tears at the mere mention of something as awful as murder. Homicide detective Art Smith wants to believe she didn&rsquo;t see a thing. Why would she lie? Then again, why else would she suddenly vanish? And Smith isn&rsquo;t the only one looking for her; so is a brutal ex-con, fresh out of San Quentin, with a score to settle. Smith knows he&rsquo;d better find her first, but Ellen is leading both men into a hall of mirrors where illusions of guilt and innocence can shatter with a single gunshot. A former crime reporter, Craig Rice was &ldquo;the first writer of detective fiction to make the cover of Time magazine. Her hardcover sales figures matched those of her bestselling contemporaries Rex Stout, Ellery Queen, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Raymond Chandler. She&rsquo;s worth remembering&rdquo; (Jon L. Breen, Edgar Award&ndash;winning author).</div>

Innocent Bystander

<div>For a Windy City attorney, the clues to a triple murder lie somewhere between the sinking of the Titanic and the dead letter office. Rodney Fairfaxx is influential and wealthy enough for his family to ignore the Chicago magnate&rsquo;s one little quirk: Ever since his sweetheart sank with the Titanic three decades ago, he&rsquo;s been anxiously awaiting her letter assuring him she&rsquo;s dry, on the mend, and coming home soon. Now, attorney John J. Malone is defending the harmless eccentric against a charge of murder. The victims: three postmen, clubbed to death. The alleged motive: failure to deliver. Malone&rsquo;s good friend, socialite Helene Justus, has been close to the Fairfaxx family for years and she&rsquo;s not buying it. However, her intuition may be as unreliable as the mail. The respectable clan yields a cluster of certified suspects&mdash;from Rodney&rsquo;s crafty niece and nephew to the tight-lipped housekeeper to Rodney himself, who may not be as off the beam as everyone thinks. But as tensions rise and secrets are revealed, another murder sends Malone on an entirely different route. With The Fourth Postman, author Craig Rice delivers &ldquo;plot and people as wacky as ever, with . . . plenty of comedy and, surprisingly, much intriguing sleuthing. Verdict: Fun&rdquo; (The Saturday Review of Literature). The Fourth Postman is the 5th book in the John J. Malone Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order. </div>

The Fourth Postman

<div>This Thanksgiving, two birds of a feather are about to get plucked&mdash;&ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t all murders be as funny as those concocted by Craig Rice?&rdquo; (The New York Times) Former con-artist photographers Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak are en route from the grit of New York City to the glitter of Sunset Boulevard when their dreams are waylaid in a tragic roadside accident with an errant turkey. But getting stuck in the off-the-map community of Thursday County, Iowa, has an upside: a blushing farmer&rsquo;s daughter with a promising sob story. To help her ailing grandma, the Halvorsen family turkey farm is up for grabs. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, Bingo and Handsome plan to make a bundle off the gobbling herd. But these two city slickers should&rsquo;ve known that small towns hide big secrets&mdash;and Thursday&rsquo;s secrets go back more than a decade. Before long, Bingo and Handsome get tangled up in a bank robbery, face off with an escaped convict, follow the trail of a buried fortune, are wrangled into a fowl conspiracy, and come to a dead end when they become suspects in a murder. As turkey day nears, it could very well be their heads on the chopping block. This Bingo and Handsome mystery is &ldquo;a devastating satire . . . [an] immensely complex cat&rsquo;s cradle of the plot&rdquo; (Barry Ergang, Derringer Award&ndash;winning author). The Thursday Turkey Murders is the 2nd book in the Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

The Thursday Turkey Murders

<div>From the author of the John J. Malone Mysteries: An estranged relative becomes heir to a Chesapeake Bay fortune&mdash;and his family&rsquo;s ghostly history. If it hadn&rsquo;t been for his great-uncle Philip, David Telefair would&rsquo;ve grown up unwanted, forlorn, and poverty stricken in a New England parsonage. But for twenty years, David&rsquo;s generous benefactor paid for his education, yearly summer camps, living expenses as he grew older, and any amenities he ever needed. Odd that David had never spoken to him in his entire life. Odder still that after all this time, the aging Philip has now extended an invitation for David to meet him at his isolated estate on Telefair Island in the Chesapeake. From the moment David arrives, something feels . . . off. First was the local minister&rsquo;s daughter&rsquo;s queer way of describing David&rsquo;s visit: inevitable; then the unaccountable loathing in the eyes of a Telefair servant; and finally a perilously pale female cousin who welcomes David with a warning: &ldquo;You ought never to have come.&rdquo; This is less a family reunion than an ingeniously designed trap of murder, madness, and nasty family secrets. This stand-alone novel by Craig Rice, the first mystery writer ever to appear on the cover of Time magazine, is &ldquo;an incredible tale . . . where ghosts still pull the strings of human lives, where revenge and hate outlast a generation and punishment is insidiously prolonged . . . a haunting sense of impending gloom&rdquo; (Kirkus Reviews). </div>

Yesterday's Murder

<div>Two New York City street photographers develop a deadly get-rich-quick scheme in this novel from &ldquo;the grand dame of mystery mixed with screwball comedy&rdquo; (Ed Gorman). Resourceful Bingo Riggs and his partner, Handsome Kusak, are in the sucker-bait business, snapping candid pics of tourists off Central Park. Their fly-by-night enterprise can be irresistible to souvenir lovers, but with one camera in a pawnshop and their developing room in the bathtub of a two-room dump near Hell&rsquo;s Kitchen, their venture is wretchedly underexposed&mdash;until they stumble upon an insurance fraud scheme between the allegedly dead eccentric Mr. S. S. Pigeon and his business partner and beneficiary. There&rsquo;s only one way for Bingo and Handsome to muscle in on that half-million-dollar claim: Kidnap Pigeon and blackmail his coconspirator. Unfortunately, their foolproof plan comes with mobsters, a dodgy chorus girl, multiple murders, a refrigerated corpse, and the strange Mr. Pigeon himself, who, it seems, likes being a hostage. In fact, he has no intention of escaping. It&rsquo;s the surest way to protect his own secret&mdash;which could be Bingo and Handsome&rsquo;s biggest threat. The first mystery writer ever to make the cover of Time magazine, Craig Rice is a &ldquo;composite of Agatha Christie&rsquo;s ingenuity, Dashiell Hammett&rsquo;s speed, and Dorothy Sayers&rsquo;s wit&rdquo; (Louis Untermeyer, Gold Medal Award&ndash;winning poet). The Sunday Pigeon Murders is the 1st book in the Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

The Sunday Pigeon Murders

<div>A Chicago attorney scours the Big Apple for a missing bride and a wedding-night murderer in a mystery that&rsquo;s &ldquo;Miss Rice at her best&rdquo; (The New Yorker). On a break from the Windy City, aspiring crime novelist Jake Justus and his wife, Helene, are acquainting themselves with Manhattan&rsquo;s finest cocktail lounges when they befriend Dennis Morrison, a blind-drunk groom. The handsome former male escort thought he&rsquo;d found his bounty in homely heiress Bertha Lutts, but while their wedding night may have been a bust, the morning after turned out to be the real horror. It seems Bertha has vanished from their bridal suite and in her place is an unidentified beheaded woman. Having taken a shine to Dennis, Jake and Helene call on his best defense: Chicago attorney John J. Malone. Winding his way through both the city&rsquo;s low lives and its high society, Malone quickly discovers a link between the nameless victim, the missing bride, and a slick gigolo: a bohemian Greenwich Village poetess who is free with her verse, knows more than she realizes, and is becoming more frightened with every New York minute. But when Dennis disappears as well, Malone&rsquo;s left with the itchy feeling that another dead end is right around the corner. The basis for the 1945 film starring Carole Landis and Pat O&rsquo;Brien, Having Wonderful Crime is &ldquo;a pleasure to read as pure entertainment but there&rsquo;s a also a wicked social voice reporting back from the eyries of the wealthy and privileged. [Rice&rsquo;s] observations are worthy of Tom Wolfe at his best and nastiest&rdquo; (Ed Gorman). Having Wonderful Crime is the 3rd book in the John J. Malone Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

Having Wonderful Crime

<div>Ten stories featuring the Chicago attorney-turned-sleuth from &ldquo;the grand dame of mystery mixed with screwball comedy&rdquo; (Ed Gorman). From suburban cocktail parties to music halls to the precarious ledge of a high-rise, Chicago attorney John J. Malone is willing to take on any case&mdash;as long as it&rsquo;ll pay his bar tab. In this ten-story collection of murder most offbeat, a wedding anniversary party turns deadly for an unlucky housewife; a client&rsquo;s supposed innocence hangs by a thread after a suicide attempt; a forlorn ballad may contain the key to a mystery; a relatively harmless lady wrestler gets pinned for cracking her husband&rsquo;s skull; an old flame&rsquo;s diary reveals a poisonous past; and a surprising obituary forces Malone to investigate his own suspicious death. The hero of fourteen novels, more than three-dozen short stories, three feature films, a radio show, and a television series, &ldquo;Malone is an inspired creation . . . [of] deductive brilliance, malaprop speech, diminutive stature, rumpled appearance, fiscal imprudence, and Irish romanticism . . . closer in spirit to John Mortimer&rsquo;s Rumpole of the Bailey than to his contemporary Erle Stanley Gardner&rsquo;s Perry Mason, whose clients are always innocent&rdquo; (Jon L. Breen, Edgar Award&ndash;winning author).</div>

The Name Is Malone

<div>A dozen murders and counting&mdash;and any one of them could lead a Chicago attorney to a hotheaded female tycoon. It&rsquo;s 11:59 p.m. on New Year&rsquo;s Eve and criminal lawyer John J. Malone is nursing his blues in a Chicago dive bar. He&rsquo;s been two-timed by his inamorata and abandoned by his favorite gumshoe partners, crime reporter Jake Justus and socialite Helene Brand, for their Bermuda honeymoon. But Malone&rsquo;s not lonely for long. Suddenly, a stranger staggers into the bar, calls out the attorney&rsquo;s name, and drops dead&mdash;stabbed in the back. In his possession is a key that could unlock the cold heart of Mona McClane, a wealthy and beautiful thrill-seeker who once challenged Jake in a high-stakes gamble: She&rsquo;d bet him she could get away with murder. Is this dead man a pawn in Mona&rsquo;s game? If so, thank goodness Jake and Helene&rsquo;s honeymoon turned as a sour as a margarita. They&rsquo;re already back in town, at odds, yet ready to play. With a crazy wager like Mona&rsquo;s, Malone fears they&rsquo;ll be ringing in the New Year with a countdown of corpses. The first mystery writer to ever make the cover of Time magazine, Craig Rice is &ldquo;the Queen of the Surrealistic Crime Story&rdquo; (Thrilling Detective). The Right Murder is the 2nd book in the John J. Malone Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

The Right Murder

<div>A supermodel&rsquo;s beauty secrets trigger an ugly series of murders in this &ldquo;pretty damn wonderful&rdquo; mystery (The New York Times). From her velvety voice to a pair of legs that say walk this way, Delora Deanne is the most divine creation ever put on earth to sell moisturizer. As Chicago attorney John J. Malone&rsquo;s new client, the notoriously reclusive model has requested a rare one-on-one. Imagine Malone&rsquo;s surprise when he&rsquo;s greeted by Hazel Swackhammer, as midwestern as a stalk of corn and less remarkable. She&rsquo;s also the brain behind Delora Deanne Cosmetics and its closely guarded secret: Delora doesn&rsquo;t exist. Print-ad perfect, she&rsquo;s a composite of several different women. But one of them has gone missing, her hands delivered to Hazel in a pair of lavender gloves. Malone&rsquo;s stumped&mdash;and more than a little queasy. Whether her vengeful ex-husband or an entrepreneurial rival, someone&rsquo;s clued in to the truth behind Hazel&rsquo;s success and wants to bring her down. Now, with each special delivery, the illusion of Delora Deanne is literally falling apart, piece by beautiful piece. The first mystery writer to grace the cover of Time magazine, Craig Rice is &ldquo;the Queen of the Surrealistic Crime Story. Almost everything that happens in one of her witty, wacky novels is completely off the wall&rdquo; (Thrilling Detective). My Kingdom for a Hearse is the 6th book in the John J. Malone Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

My Kingdom for a Hearse

<div>Wrongly convicted of murder, a death-row chorus girl lives for revenge, in this novel from &ldquo;the grand dame of mystery mixed with screwball comedy&rdquo; (Ed Gorman). Anna Marie St. Clair was a normal Wisconsin-farm-girl-turned-mistress when she was framed for the murder of her racketeer boyfriend, one of Chicago&rsquo;s sleaziest politicians. Sentenced to death, and only hours from getting fried, a lucky hitch sets Anna Marie free, but she blackmails the corrupt warden into informing the tabloids that she took her volts like a real trouper. What better payback than to haunt the lives of those who tried to steal hers? As the shapeliest ghost in the Windy City, she&rsquo;s going to prove that dying well is the best revenge. Even luckier for Anna Marie, she has enthusiastic backup: attorney John J. Malone, who&rsquo;s got a soft spot for scrappy dames; her best friend, nightclub stripper Milly Dale; and crime reporter Jake Justus and his wife, Helene, who are always game for adventure. But when navigating the criminal underworld gets a little too spirited, there&rsquo;s no telling who&rsquo;s going to end up dead. The Lucky Stiff was the basis for the 1949 film starring Dorothy Lamour and Brian Donlevy. Says Louis Untermeyer, Gold Medal Award&ndash;winning poet, author Craig Rice is a &ldquo;composite of Agatha Christie&rsquo;s ingenuity, Dashiell Hammett&rsquo;s speed, and Dorothy Sayers&rsquo;s wit.&rdquo; The Lucky Stiff is the 4th book in the John J. Malone Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

The Lucky Stiff

<div>It&rsquo;s murder backstage for a cynical Chicago attorney&mdash;from &ldquo;the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction&rdquo; (William Ruehlmann). It&rsquo;s part casino, part nightclub, and part circus. For its new owners, Jake Justus and his socialite wife, Helene, it&rsquo;s also a gamble. Luckily they have Jay Otto. Next to a bouncy burlesque bit, Otto&rsquo;s high-wire act is the hottest draw in the joint. But the crowd isn&rsquo;t the only thing left breathless. The performer has just been found in his dressing room, doped up, dead, and hanging by eleven silk stockings. The method is fetching. The probable motive? Otto was the nastiest, most hateful, devious, blackmailing little cuss on the circuit. But Jake&rsquo;s friend, attorney John J. Malone, thinks this is more than a case of justifiable homicide&mdash;especially when Otto isn&rsquo;t the last on the bill to get all choked up. Now Malone has a lot of secrets to untangle so he can collar the killer, because Jake and Helene&rsquo;s necks could be next on the line. The Big Midget Murders is &ldquo;expertly timed . . . and frenzied . . . with lavish accompaniment of good wise-cracking. Verdict: Superior&rdquo; (TheSaturday Review of Literature). &ldquo;Call it screwball noir, call it hard-boiled farce, call it whatever you want . . . Craig Rice did it with John J. Malone, her ne-er-do-well bibulous attorney&rdquo; (Thrilling Detective).</div>

The Big Midget Murders

<div>From Hollywood&rsquo;s Black Dahlia to the Arkansas Bluebeard: an anthology of true crime profiles by &ldquo;the grand dame of mystery&rdquo; (Ed Gorman). Whether venturing into a blood-spattered farm in Texas, down a lonely mountain road in Alabama, or into the deceptively sunny Ohio suburbs, acclaimed mystery writer Craig Rice lends her hard-boiled style and a wicked irony to this gallery of real-life murders. Among them . . . A saintly middle-aged widow bludgeoned to death in her New Jersey home; the headless torsos of two women found floating in the Lake of the Ozarks; a New Year&rsquo;s fire in Pennsylvania set to cover the traces of a more ghastly crime; a traveling evangelist on a divine mission blown to bits in Berkley; an aspiring starlet tortured, bisected, and dumped in a vacant LA lot; and a New York couple poisoned to death by the mysterious &ldquo;Veiled Murderess,&rdquo; a convicted killer who never revealed her motives&mdash;or her true identity. Culled from Rice&rsquo;s work as a crime reporter, &ldquo;the stories in 45 Murderers have withstood time&rdquo; as a century-spanning, cross-country tour of the sinister underbelly of the American Dream (Jeffrey Marks, author of Who Was That Lady?).</div>

45 Murderers

<div>A cynical Chicago attorney butts heads with a beautiful killer socialite&mdash;from &ldquo;the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction&rdquo; (William Ruehlmann). Press agent Jake Justus doesn&rsquo;t care if all of Chicago drops dead. He&rsquo;s just tied the knot with debutante Helene Brand, and a Bermuda honeymoon is only three in-flight martinis away. But the shooting death of a man in broad daylight, on the busiest shopping day of the year, with plenty of witnesses, is particularly ill timed. Jake&rsquo;s pal, attorney John J. Malone, agrees. Only a day before, wedding guest Mona McClane, notorious jetsetter and tipsy big-game hunter, bet the two men she could bag an innocent stranger and they&rsquo;d never be able to prove a thing. Then Malone discovers that the victim wasn&rsquo;t so innocent. Any number of people wanted him dead. And if Mona is only one of them, Malone&rsquo;s wagering there&rsquo;s much more to this murder than just the thrill of getting away with it. The first mystery writer to ever make the cover of Time magazine, Craig Rice was known for her fizzy cocktails of hard-boiled noir and screwball comedy, prompting the New York Times to ask: &ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t all murders be as funny as those concocted by Craig Rice?&rdquo; </div>

The Wrong Murder

<div>A Chicago lawyer gets swept up in a conspiracy of spies, double-crosses, brainwashing, and murder. Defense attorney John J. Malone may be a habitu&eacute; of Windy City dive bars, but he&rsquo;s never lost his balance&mdash;until now. Not only is he shaken by the contract killing of his latest client, but one of his best friends, socialite Helene Justus, is turning into a complete stranger. At the urging of a mysterious old college chum, the job-phobic heiress has suddenly taken a low-level position at a top-secret chemical research lab. What&rsquo;s more, Helene is spending her mornings on the couch of an esteemed hypnotherapist. It&rsquo;s confusing as hell to her husband, Jake. To Malone, too. The last time he saw Helene she had no idea who he was. Now it&rsquo;s up to Malone to shed some light on the shadows of Helene&rsquo;s secret life. Somebody&rsquo;s playing mind games&mdash;and the power of suggestion is turning Helene into its most dangerous pawn. &ldquo;Almost everything that happens in one of [Rice&rsquo;s] . . . novels is completely off the wall. To Rice, reality was truly just a concept; a weird and wonderful playground where her imagination could romp around unfettered&rdquo; (Thrilling Detective).</div>

But the Doctor Died

<div>Being framed for murder is the least of a Chicago attorney&rsquo;s problems in this dizzying thriller by &ldquo;the grand dame of mystery mixed with screwball comedy&rdquo; (Ed Gorman). Attorney John J. Malone, steadfast barfly and proud defender of the guilty, has a lot enemies, but few more formidable than Chicago financier and anti-vice crusader Leonard Estapole. So it doesn&rsquo;t look good when Estapole&rsquo;s corpse turns up in Malone&rsquo;s office, liberated from this life by a bronze Buddha to the skull. But when the stiff&rsquo;s stepdaughter is kidnapped, and Malone is implicated, it&rsquo;s a frame job gone too far. Especially when Malone is suddenly saddled with the obnoxious abductee&mdash;a dimpled little extortionist who refuses to go home. If only Malone could count on his friends, Jake and Helene Justus. Unfortunately, Helene&rsquo;s disappeared from a Wyoming dude ranch and her friendship with Estapole&rsquo;s trophy-wife widow is too coincidental for comfort. Now, with every blindsiding twist of the case, Malone is starting to feel more and more like a hostage himself. The first mystery writer to ever make the cover of Time magazine, Craig Rice is a &ldquo;composite of Agatha Christie&rsquo;s ingenuity, Dashiell Hammett&rsquo;s speed, and Dorothy Sayers&rsquo;s wit&rdquo; (Louis Untermeyer). And in Knocked for a Loop, she&rsquo;s in &ldquo;top form&rdquo; (Jon L. Breen, Edgar Award&ndash;winning author).</div>

Knocked for a Loop

<div>A mysterious Robin Hood targets Wall Street titans in this &ldquo;exciting &rdquo; novel by the author of the John J. Malone Mysteries (The Cincinnati Enquirer). Thanks to a financial scheme by a small circle of very rich men, countless people have suffered. Now one man intends to make the Wall Street moguls pay. He hovers on the edges of their social events, where their wives and daughters sport priceless jewels even as others in the city struggle just to survive. But our thief&rsquo;s latest escapade has inadvertently turned into a kidnapping. When he tries to release the girl&mdash;an unhappy, madcap heiress&mdash;she decides she wants in on the action. And when a murderer enters the picture, the thief must defend himself against crimes far more serious than petty theft . . . Originally published under the name Daphne Sanders, this inventive thriller by author Craig Rice, who is known for her &ldquo;tough, wisecracking style,&rdquo; mixes a vivid portrait of Great Depression&ndash;era New York with a twist-filled plot following a clever vigilante and the private detective trying to track him down (The New York Times). &ldquo;A lively, well-paced story.&rdquo; &mdash;Boston Traveler This ebook features an introduction by Jeffrey Marks.</div>

Craig Rice

Books By Craig Rice (22 Books)