Maxima Library

En Nueva Orleans, una fundación de ayuda a la `contra` nicaragüense guarda todo el dinero recaudado con la bendición de Reagan entre los magnates y empresarios norteamericanos. El coronel Dagoberto Godoy y su siniestro guardaespaldas, Franklin de Dios, son los encargados de recoger el dinero y de organizar el embarque clandestino, de las armas destinadas a la guerrilla antisandinista. La CIA sigue con atención los acontecimientos, pero nadie puede sospechar que se ha formado entre tanto un singular grupo de bandidos dispuestos a dar un golpe magistral. Aunque parezca una locura, Lucy Nichols, que había sido monja en una leprosería de Nicaragua, Jack Delaney, ex presidiario, y Roy Hicks, que fue expulsado de la policía acusado de soborno, tienen un plan infalible para hacerse con el botín.

Frank Matisse had specialized in stealing from hotel rooms but was trying hard to go straight. He meets Dick Nichols in New Orleans and discovers that he was raising money for the Contras, although his daughter, Lucy, doesn't want the money to arrive in Nicaragua. From the author of "Glitz".

George Moran's affair with a beautiful woman leads him into danger when her husband, a mob-connected Dominican cop, discovers what has been happening and sets out to seek revenge on him at all costs. Reprint. 20,000 first printing. NYT.In the world of Elmore Leonard novels, two ex-Marines can sit around a hotel swimming pool in Florida and, as if it were perfectly natural, chat about a friendly fire incident during an "interventionist action" in Santo Domingo. His characters have learned the futility of complaining about a life where deadly violence and moral obligations are all too frequently intertwined. In Cat Chaser George Moran is the hotel manager who got shot at back then; now, he's rekindling his intimate acquaintance with the wife of Andres de Boya, a former Dominican military enforcer who currently invests in real estate with a healthy sideline in drugs.A dizzying series of plot twists involving various grifters and strongmen (both hired and freelance) leads to the grimly comic suspense action that Elmore Leonard fans have come to know and love. But as always, it's Leonard's impressive ear for dialogue that raises Cat Chaser above the herd of crime novels. An example: "That's correct," Scully said, "I'm a consultant… I advise people on business matters, act as a go-between, bring people together that want to make deals… things like that. You want to know any more, come by my office, we'll have a coffee sometime. Okay? Right now I'm going to see Mr. Pradi. Where you come in--I'm gonna knock on his door, he don't open it then I might have to kick it in. I mean the business I got with him is that pressing. So you can give me a key and maybe save yourself a door. What do you think?" Well, what do you think? --Ron Hogan

Clement Mansell knows how easy it is to get away with murder. The seriously crazed killer is already back on the Detroit streets -- thanks to some nifty courtroom moves by his crafty looker of a lawyer -- and he's feeling invincible enough to execute a crooked Motown judge on a whim. Homicide Detective Raymond Cruz thinks the "Oklahoma Wildman" crossed the line long before this latest outrage, and he's determined to see that the hayseed psycho does not slip through the legal system's loopholes a second time. But that means a good cop is going to have to play somewhat fast and loose with the rules -- in order to maneuver Mansell into a wild Midwest showdown that he won't be walking away from.

DESCRIPTION: From some of the greatest literary minds of our time comes a collection of stories about dangerous women.

With an unprecedented lineup of authors, Mysterious Press proudly presents an extraordinary collection of short stories. Lorenzo Carcaterra, Michael Connelly, John Connolly, Jeffery Deaver, Nelson DeMille, J.A. Jance, Andrew Klavan, Elmore Leonard, Laura Lippman, Ed McBain, Jay McInerney, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Perry, Ian Rankin, S.J. Rozan, and Thomas H. Cook combine their talents in a collection which is certain to find a large audience eager to read stories by some of the most distinguished names in the genre.

No one breaks out of the brutal convict labor camp at Five Shadows -- but Corey Bowen is ready to die trying. They framed him to put him in there, and beat him bloody and nearly dead after his last escape attempt. He'll have help this time -- from a lady with murder on her mind and a debt to pay back. Because freedom isn't enough for primed dynamite like Bowen. And he won't leave the corrupt desert hell behind him until a few scores are settled…permanently.

A story of murder and corruption set in Puerto Rico and Atlantic City. Tommy Donovan has a casino in both places. Our cop hero Vincent is convalescing in Puerto Rico after being shot by a mugger. Vincent gets involved with a Puerto Ricon beauty who leaves to work for Donovan in Atlantic City.

Karen Di Cilia married a man in the Mafia. When he died he left her $4,000,000 – and instructions that she never touch another man again. He had the connections to ensure that his will was carried out. His friends hired a hustler to guard her. However the hustler had other ideas.

The first in a series of collections of the author's westerns, written early in his spectacularly successful career, contains "Bounty Hunters," "Forty Lashes Less One," and "Gunsights," featuring a Bonny-and-Clyde pair of gunslingers. Original.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Brendan Early and Dana Moon have tracked renegade Apaches together and gunned down scalp hunters to become Arizona legends. But now they face each other from opposite sides of what newspapers are calling The Rincon Mountain War. Brendan and a gang of mining company gun thugs are dead set on running Dana and "the People of the Mountain" from their land. The characters are unforgettable, the plot packed with action and gunfights from beginning to end.

John Russell has been raised as an Apache. Now he's on his way to live as a white man. But when the stagecoach passengers learn who he is, they want nothing to do with him -- until outlaws ride down on them and they must rely on Russell's guns and his ability to lead them out of the desert. He can't ride with them, but they must walk with him or die.

Ingram Rescuing a frightened woman from an attack by a one-armed man, Confederate soldier Paul Cable learns that his lands have been taken over by the Union army, and vows to regain his property or die trying.

Enter the world of Elmore Leonard. The setting is Palm Beach County, Florida, where someone places a live ten-foot alligator in the backyard of the bigoted, redneck judge Bob Gibbs-known to all as Maximum Bob-and his wife, Leanne, a former Weeki Wachee mermaid. Not long after that, shots are fired into the judge's house. It doesn't take much figuring to conclude that someone's out to get him and that malefactor isn't going to stop at the second try. There's a long list of suspects: Dale Crowe, who just got an outrageous sentence for a minor crime; his uncle Elvin, a killer on parole, raring to go again; Dr. Tommy Vasco, the drugged out former medical doctor; his equally bizarre friend, Hector; and Dicky Campau, who makes a living poaching alligators. And there are others.

Somehow Kathy Baker, a nifty young probation officer, has got herself in the middle of all this. She's got to avoid two seducers-the judge and a homicidal maniac-and work with a young police officer who interests her for more than professional reasons. Trying to pick out from his assortment of bad guys, sociopaths, and punks the one who's trying to kill the judge is pure entertainment, as only Elmore Leonard, with his ear for the sound and eye for the sight of lowlife, can provide.

Las mujeres más peligrosas son aquellas que resultan irresistibles. ¿Qué hace peligrosa a una mujer? Su gran belleza, su encanto, su inteligencia, la manera en que se aparta el cabello de los ojos, o el modo de reírse. Puede tener conciencia absoluta de su poder, o desconocerlo por completo. Utilizarlo comoa rma o protegerse detrás de él. La intención y el propósito no aumentan ni disminuyen el poder, y ése es mayor peligro de todos los que son seducidos y sometidos por él.

When Jack Foley, a career bank robber, surfaces after tunneling out of a medium-security penitentiary in Florida, he comes face to face with Karen Sisco, a beautiful federal marshal. Though the barrel of her shotgun is pointed right at his face, she doesn't shoot, and Foley's accomplice, Buddy, overpowers her and puts her in the trunk of a car. Foley gets in with her and the car takes off, the escapee seemingly home free. In the cramped darkness of the trunk, the criminal and marshal find they have much in common and by the time the car reaches its destination, the two have become infatuated with each other. After Karen manages to escape, she and Foley try to reconnect outside the confining roles of kidnapper and victim.

Nobody writes novels like Elmore Leonard, with his crackling dialogue, breathless pacing, and hilarious hard-luck, unfailingly human characters. In his sizzling new novel, the New York Times best selling author crosses continents to tell an adrenaline-charged story of crime and retribution-where double crosses become triple crosses, revenge is where you find it, and absolution is just around the corner.

Father Terry Dunn hears a lot of strange confessions. After all, he's the only priest for miles in the lingering aftermath of the worst massacre Rwanda has ever seen. And Fr. Terry, who has forty- seven bodies in his church that need burying, has just heard one confession too many. After exacting from them a chilling penance, Fr. Terry has to get out of Africa-pronto.

Now Terry is coming home to Detroit, where a five-year-old tax-fraud indictment is hanging over him. Is Terry Dunn really a priest? He certainly doesn't act like one. A fugitive felon on two continents, Terry is being pursued by a cigarette-smuggling cohort, who rolled over on Terry to save jail time-yet still demands his share of the money. But Debbie Dewey has other plans for Terry. She's just been sprung from a three-year fall at Saw- grass Correctional for aggravated assault…and is now trying to make it as a stand-up comic. Debbie and Terry hit it off beautifully. They have the same sense of humor and similar goals:

Both of them want to raise a whole lot of cash. Terry, for the children of Rwanda; Debbie, to score off a guy who owes her sixty-seven thousand dollars. It's Debbie who keeps prying, until she learns the bizarre truth about Terry; Debbie who sells him on going in together for a much bigger payoff than either could manage alone. That is unless the priest is working a con of his own.

With an unforgettable cast of oddballs and schemers-including a mob boss on trial, an unlikely assassin called Mutt, an ex-con con artist who dreams of doing stand-up, and a priest who may not be a priest- Pagan Babies is Elmore Leonard at his double-dealing best. In the hands of this master, the stakes are always life and death. Crime fiction doesn't get any better.

ELMORE LEONARD is the author of thirty-six novels, including such bestsellers as Be Cool, Cuba Libre, Out of Sight, Riding the Rap, Pronto, Rum Punch, Maximum Bob, Get Shorty, and numerous screenplays. He and his wife, Christine, live in a suburb of Detroit.

Visit the Elmore Leonard website at www.elmoreleonard.com.

Un buen día, los apostadores empezarían a preguntarse ¿Qué se habrá hecho de Harry Arno?, y se darían cuenta de que no sabían nada de él.

"Desaparecería, empezaría una nueva vida. Basta de presión. Basta de trabajar para gente a la que no respetaba. Una copita de vez en cuando. Tal vez incluso un cigarrillo al atardecer, contemplando la puesta de sol en la bahía. Joyce estaría con él. Bueno, a lo mejor. Como si no hubiera bastantes mujeres en el lugar al que se dirijía. Tal vez sería mejor que partiera él primero y se instalara. Luego, si le apetecía, ya la llamaría. Estaba esperando. Tenía dos pasaportes con nombres distintos por si acaso. Todo estaba claro; ningún problema.

Hasta aquella tarde en que Buck Torres le dijo que estaba metido en un buen follón".

For many years, some of the most vital, creative, and exciting fiction published in America has been in the field of mystery, crime, and suspense. Now Robert B. Parker and Otto Penzler — both Edgar winners — have assembled the best that 1997 had to offer: twenty terrific, titillating tales from such masters of the genre as Elmore Leonard, Elizabeth George, James Crumley, Jonathan Kellerman, and Andrew Klavan, from newcomers like Brad Watson, and from well-known literary writers such as Joyce Carol Oates and Michael Malone.

In his introduction to the The Best American Noir of the Century, James Ellroy writes, 'noir is the most scrutinized offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction. It's the long drop off the short pier and the wrong man and the wrong woman in perfect misalliance. It's the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that goes bad.' Offering the best examples of literary sure things gone bad, this collection ensures that nowhere else can readers find a darker, more thorough distillation of American noir fiction.

James Ellroy and Otto Penzler, series editor of the annual The Best American Mystery Stories, mined one hundred years of writing - 1910-2010 - to find this treasure trove of thirty-nine stories. From noir's twenties-era infancy come gems like James M. Cain's 'Pastorale,' and its post-war heyday boasts giants like Mickey Spillane and Evan Hunter. Packing an undeniable punch, diverse contemporary incarnations include Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, Joyce Carol Oates, Dennis Lehane, and William Gay, with many page-turners appearing in the last decade.

High diver Dennis Lenahan is about to perform his regular stunt of diving into a small water tank from the roof of the Tishomingo Lodge in Mississippi when, way below, he sees a guy getting killed. Dennis has stumbled into one hell of a scene – unfortunate enough to be present when the cool dudes from Detroit are trying to muscle in on the local activities of the Dixie Mafia. And he's still around when it all comes to a shoot-out at the annual reconstruction of the Civil War Battle of Tishomingo – only this time they're playing with real guns… Elmore Leonard's great new bestseller combines, as always, high comedy with high action, and some of the best dialogue ever given to characters in a novel.