Maxima Library

It was all too frighteningly familiar. For the second time in his life, Alex Penn wakes up in an alcoholic daze in a cheap hotel room off Times Square and finds himself lying next to the savagely mutilated body of a young woman. After the first death, he was convicted of murder and imprisoned, then released on a technicality. But this time he has to find out what happened during the blackout and why-before the police do.

Lawrence Block weaves his spell in this suspenseful taleof a man haunted by murders he hopes he hasn¹tcommitted… It was all too frighteningly familiar. For the second time in his life, Alex Penn wakes up in an alcoholic daze in a cheap hotel room off Times Square and finds himself lying next to the savagely mutilated body of a young woman. After the first death, he was convicted of murder and imprisoned, then released on a technicality. But this time he has to find out what happened during the blackout and why? before the police do.

Brand-new stories by: Thomas Adcock, Kevin Baker, Thomas Bentil, Lawrence Block, Jerome Charyn, Suzanne Chazin, Terrence Cheng, Ed Dee, Joanne Dobson, Robert Hughes, Marlon James, Sandra Kitt, Rita Laken, Miles Marshall Lewis, Pat Picciarelli, Abraham Rodriguez Jr., S.J. Rozan, Steven Torres, and Joe Wallace.

As any Bronxite will tell you, being from Da Bronx is a permanent condition, no matter where you end up... For a time in the '70s and '80s, the name was synonymous (to non-Bronxites) with a vast urban maelstrom of lawlessness and decay. But the place was always more complicated than that. There's the Bronx Zoo, the Botanical Garden, universities, Yankee Stadium, grand estates, squalid housing projects, the sinking Concourse, and nautical City Island... The writers represented in Bronx Noir know the borough so well that, reading the book, you'll smell it, feel it, see it, hear it. The sights and scents will be multitudinous and as distinct as the neighborhoods. And everyone of them, in all their glorious mutual contradiction, is the Bronx.

When a married businessman falls for a small-town minx, his obsessive love will spur him to give up anything to have her

Jeff Flanders has a nice little job, a nice little wife, and absolutely nothing to get excited about. All that goes down the drain when he meets Candy, a small-town girl who looks as sweet as her name, but is bitter to the core. She offers him her body—the best he’s ever seen—for the bargain price of $1,000, and he can’t refuse. The affair turns Jeff’s world inside out, and he takes to her like she’s a drug, giving up half his paycheck every week for the privilege of taking Candy to bed.

But when Candy finds a new keeper on Park Avenue, Jeff’s life spins out of control. His addiction to Candy will drive him to do anything to get her back—even kill.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lawrence Block, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from his personal collection, and a new afterword written by the author.

Review

“Block is one-up on the alchemists: He can turn base material into literary gold.” —

Los Angeles Times

“How Block can be so prolific and maintain such a high degree of originality is itself a mystery.” —

The Kansas City Star

“Block is one of the best!” —

The Washington Post

It was a perfect setting for a honeymoon — a charming little cabin in the isolated Pennsylvania woods. It should have been the perfect beginning to a long and happy marriage. Then five shots rang out in the quiet woods and shattered Dave and Jill Wade’s perfect honeymoon. Terror had come crashing through their cabin door, snuffing out all thoughts of love. Now all that Dave and Jill Wade felt was haste — hate and the overwhelming desire for revenge.

Lawrence Block's novels win awards, grace bestseller lists, and get made into films. His short fiction is every bit as outstanding, and this complete collection of his short stories establishes the extraordinary skill, power, and versatility of this contemporary Grand Master.

Block's beloved series characters are on hand, including ex-cop Matt Scudder, bookselling burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, and the disarming duo of Chip Harrison and Leo Haig. Here, too, are Keller, the wistful hit man, and the natty attorney Martin Ehrengraf, who takes criminal cases on a contingency basis and whose clients always turn out to be innocent.

Keeping them company are dozens of other refugees from Block's dazzling imagination — all caught up in more ingenious plots than you can shake a blunt instrument at.

Half a dozen of Block's stories have been shortlisted for the Edgar Award, and three have won it outright. Other stories have been read aloud on BBC Radio, dramatized on American and British television, and adapted for the stage and screen. All the tales in Block's three previous collections are here, along with two dozen new stories. Some will keep you on the edge of the chair. Others will make you roll on the floor laughing. And more than a few of them will give you something to think about. Enough Rope is an essential volume for Lawrence Block fans, and a dazzling introduction for others to the wonderful world of... Block magic!

This anthology was edited by Michael Connelly. His essay is called "Once Upon a Midnight Dreary."

A collection of stories by thriller master Edgar Allan Poe with essays by beloved and bestselling writers, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth. Authors involved include Michael Connelly, Jeffery Deaver, Nelson DeMille, Tess Gerritsen, Sue Grafton, Stephen King, Lisa Scottoline, Laura Lippman, and twelve others.

***

Few have crafted stories as haunting as those by Edgar Allan Poe. Collected here to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth are sixteen of his best tales accompanied by twenty essays from beloved authors, including T. Jefferson Parker, Lawrence Block, Sara Paretsky, and Joseph Wambaugh, among others, on how Poe has changed their life and work.

Michael Connelly recounts the inspiration he drew from Poe's poetry while researching one of his books. Stephen King reflects on Poe's insight into humanity's dark side in "The Genius of 'The Tell-Tale Heart.'" Jan Burke recalls her childhood terror during late-night reading sessions. Tess Gerritsen, Nelson DeMille, and others remember the classic B-movie adaptations of Poe's tales. And in "The Thief," Laurie R. King complains about how Poe stole all the good ideas… or maybe he just thought of them first.

Powerful and timeless, In the Shadow of the Master is a celebration of one of the greatest literary minds of all time.

The Mystery Writers of America, founded in 1945, is the foremost organization for mystery writers and other professionals dedicated to the field of crime writing.

When you’ve already got blood on your hands, what’s a little more?

Turner needs to start a new life and that means he needs cash… fast. So the twenty thousand he’s offered for a job sounds pretty good, even if it means killing Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. And he’s not alone. There are four other men—killers, idealists, mercenaries—all with the same target. Can they band together to overthrow Castro and get Turner his chance at a new life?

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lawrence Block, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from his personal collection, and a new afterword written by the author.

Rockstar Games has partnered with Mulholland Books to publish a collection of short fiction expanding the world of the newest groundbreaking achievement in storytelling: the interactive crime thriller L.A. Noire.

1940s Hollywood, murder, deception and mystery take center stage as readers reintroduce themselves to characters seen in L.A. Noire. Explore the lives of actresses desperate for the Hollywood spotlight; heroes turned defeated men; and classic Noir villains. Readers will come across not only familiar faces, but familiar cases from the game that take on a new spin to tell the tales of emotionally torn protagonists, depraved schemers and their ill-fated victims.

With original short fiction by Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Joe Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, Jonathan Santlofer, Duane Swierczynski and Andrew Vachss, L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories breathes new life into a time-honored American tradition, in an exciting anthology that will appeal to fans of suspense and gamers everywhere.

Brand-new stories by: Jeffery Deaver, Lawrence Block, Charles Ardai, Carol Lea Benjamin, Thomas H. Cook, Jim Fusilli, Robert Knightly, John Lutz, Liz Martínez, Maan Meyers, Martin Meyers, S.J. Rozan, Justin Scott, C.J. Sullivan, and Xu Xi.

A walk on the wild side! In this series of collections of gritty Noir and Hardboiled stories, you’ll find some of the best writers of the craft writing in their prime.

You’ve seen the headlines. On the court they brawl with opponents, fight with fans, and attack their own coach. Off the court they get drunk, grope women, and, sometimes, get tried for murder. Now these all-star bad boys from the ranks of today’s pro basketball provide easy layup material for the fictional imaginations of our finest contemporary mystery writers. Refereed by prizewinning editor Otto Penzler, this anthology collects fourteen dazzling, original tales of buzzer-beating suspense and postgame mayhem.

In “Keller’s Double Dribble,” Lawrence Block tails a clueless hitman with courtside tickets to unplanned bloodshed… Jeffery Deaver’s power guard summons his formidable game instincts to thwart a pack of scammers in “Nothing but Net”… a flagrant foul and a cruel betrayal send a star player crashing in Mike Lupica’s “Mrs. Cash”… George Pelecanos’s “String Music” traces the dangerous escalation of a playground beef… and in “Galahad, Inc.,” by Joan H. Parker and Robert B. Parker, a college prodigy seeks unlikely defensive help against a sorority party sex rap.

Other literary slam-dunk tales ask just how hard a former Olympic medalist will fight to get back his old glory… what hustle will win you the dunk-or-die prison matchup… and why the pride of the Knicks will never live to see the playoffs. You’ll find all the answers inside these pages from acclaimed storytellers Sue DeNymme, Brendan DuBois, Parnell Hall, Laurie R. King, Michael Malone, R. D. Rosen, S. J. Rozan, Justin Scott, and Stephen Solomita. There’s the whistle. Here’s the tip-off. Let these great clutch shot-makers put you in the zone.

An anthology of stories edited by Otto Penzler

This is a collection of 12 original stories by such crime writers as Lawrence Block, Mary Higgins Clark, Thomas H. Cook, Eric Lustbader, Philip Margolin, David Morrell, Joyce Carol Oates and Peter Straub.

You think you’ve got problems?

Well, how would you like to get a letter from your ex-wife’s lawyer threatening a lawsuit over a measly few months’ alimony? And then be fired from your job as editor of Ronald Rabbit’s Magazine for Boys and Girls simply because the magazine had ceased publication six month ago? And then go home to find your wife has run off with your best friend — and your bank account? And that you are being evicted from your apartment?

What do you do then, when you are left with nothing but your lurid memories, your itchy libido and an unemployed typewriter?

If you are Laurence Clarke, our trepid hero and the world’s most cunning linguist, you immediately plunge into not one but seven simultaneous and overlapping love affairs that would boggle a satyr. And you set into motion the most outrageous, insanely complicated and deviously horny series of interlocking plots and counterplots since Machiavelli began his nursery school.

How did these maniacal manipulations bring together the erstwhile publisher of Ronald Rabbit’s his depraved but virginal secretary, six little schoolgirls who should have had Polly Adler for a housemother, two ex-wives who were usually too prone to argue, one landlord, two law firms, various bystanders, and a partridge in a pear tree?

You’ll have to read the incredible letters of Laurence Clarke to find out, but we will admit to one thing:

We lied about the partridge.

From the revered New York Times bestselling author comes a touching, insightful, and humorous memoir of an unlikely racewalker and world traveler.

From legendary editor Ellen Datlow, collects the best of the last thirty years of science fiction and fantasy stories about cats from an all-star list of contributors.

In its brief existence, THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES has established itself as a peerless suspense anthology. Compiled by the best-selling mystery novelist Ed McBain, this year’s edition boasts nineteen outstanding tales by such masters as John Updike, Lawrence Block, Jeffery Deaver, and Joyce Carol Oates as well as stories by rising stars such as Edgar Award winners Tom Franklin and Thomas H. Cook. The 1999 volume is a spectacular showcase for the high quality and broad diversity of the year’s finest suspense, crime, and mystery writing.

An anthology of stories edited by Harlan Coben and Otto Penzler

Best-selling novelist Harlan Coben, a master of suspense and creator of the critically-acclaimed Myron Bolitar series, edits this latest collection of the must-reads in mysteries from the past year.

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.

In the depths of her blue eyes, he glimpsed... murder.

Cashed out from the NYPD after 24 years, Doak Miller operates as a private eye in steamy small-town Florida, doing jobs for the local police. Like posing as a hit man and wearing a wire to incriminate a local wife who’s looking to get rid of her husband. But when he sees the wife, when he looks into her deep blue eyes...

He falls — and falls hard. Soon he’s working with her, against his employer, plotting a devious plan that could get her free from her husband and put millions in her bank account. But can they do it without landing in jail? And once heХs kindled his taste for killing... will he be able to stop at one?

Even before he invented Matthew Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr, Block was writing terrific thrillers such as this.

Johnny Hayden and his partner had the perfect scam selling worthless Canadian land to marks. The scam just has to work, because at stake is Evvie — the girl with the long green heart.

An anthology of stories

A new anthology of twenty-nine short stories features an array of baffling locked-room mysteries by Michael Collins, Bill Pronzini, Susanna Gregory, H. R. F. Keating, Peter Lovesey, Kate Ellis, and Lawrence Block, among others.

Pulp fiction has been looked down on as a guilty pleasure, but it offers the perfect form of entertainment: the very best storytelling filled with action, surprises, sound and fury. In short, all the exhiliration of a roller-coaster ride. The 1920s in America saw the proliferation of hundreds of dubiously named but thrillingly entertaining pulp magazines in America: Black Mask, Amazing, Astounding, Spicy Stories, Ace-High, Detective Magazine, Dare-Devil Aces. It was in these luridly-coloured publications, printed on the cheapest pulp paper, that the first gems began to appear. The one golden rule for writers of pulp fiction was to adhere to the art of storytelling. Each story had to have a beginning, an end, economically-etched characters, but plenty going on, both in terms of action and emotions. Pulp magazines were the TV of their day, plucking readers from drab lives and planting them firmly in thrilling make-believe, successors...

This time it started with a call girl.

She came running to Eddie Manso scared stiff. A bad scene with some sadistic hood. The guy had told the girl he was a rich banker. That's what interested Eddie. The guy had said he owned the banks.

A hood who owned banks?

Eddie called the colonel and the colonel called the others...

There were six of them. Specialists. Ex-soldiers, each with a unique talent. There game was getting to a special kind of vermin, the kind that preyed on innocents... the kind the law never seemed to be able to grab.

There was always trouble, but this one was going to be really rough. The "banker" was no ordinary hood. And he had his own army of specialists.

The best USA-based stories in the Akashic noir series, compiled into one volume and edited by Johnny Temple!

For years, readers have turned to Lawrence Block’s novels for mesmerizing entertainment. And for years. writers have turned to Block’s Writing the Novel for candid, conversational, practical advice on how to put a publishable novel on paper.

Now that you’ve discovered it, you, too, will find this to be the guide for the working novelist. Filled with Block’s experiences and much that he’s learned from others, the look helps you:

• identify the type of novel you’re meant to write

• invite plot ideas to bubble up from your subconscious

• develop characters who act, feel and speak like real people

• use what you know and learn what you must

• snare readers from the start

• keep writing

• develop your style

• market your work in a professional manner

Bead what Lawrence Block has to say. Then write what you have to write. Your novel.