Spade & Archer
Spade & Archer

Author: Joe Gores

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2009-02-10

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 030727148X

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A wonderfully dark, pitch-perfect noir prequel to The Maltese Falcon, featuring Dashiell Hammett’s beloved detective, Sam Spade. It’s 1921—seven years before Sam Spade will solve the famous case of the Maltese Falcon. He’s just set up his own agency in San Francisco and he gets off to a quick start, working cases (he doesn’t do domestic) and hiring a bright young secretary named Effie Perrine. When he’s hired by a prominent San Francisco banker to find his missing son, Spade gets the break he’s been looking for. He spends the next few years dealing with booze runners, waterfront thugs, banking swindlers, gold smugglers, and bumbling cops. He brings in Miles Archer as a partner to help bolster the agency, though it was Archer who stole his girl while he was fighting in World War I. All along, Spade will tangle with an enigmatic villain who holds a long-standing grudge against Spade. And, of course, he’ll fall in love—though it won’t turn out for the best. It never does with dames.

The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon

Author: Dashiell Hammett

Publisher: Good Press

Published: 2021-12-24

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13:

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The fragrant Miss Wonderley hires Sam Spade, a private detective, to track down her sister, who has eloped with an immoral man called Floyd Thursby. But trouble finds Spade when his partner Miles Archer gets shot while on Thursby's trail. "The Maltese Falcon" is a classic mystery novel that shaped how writers told detective stories.

Paper Doll
Paper Doll

Author: Robert B. Parker

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1994-04-01

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1101546514

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Boston PI Spenser investigates the perfect murder in this New York Times bestselling mystery in Robert B. Parker’s acclaimed series. She was a model wife and mother, bludgeoned with a hammer on the streets of Beacon Hill. Spenser's searching for a motive and a murderer—and finding more secrets than meet the eye... “Among the best Spensers...Parker's at the top of his game!”—Boston Globe

A Time of Predators
A Time of Predators

Author: Joe Gores

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2005-03

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9780765310507

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Otto Penzler and the Mystery Writers of America Present A Time of Predators by Joe Gores, winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel The gang was restless, just looking for idle fun. They roughed up a man they thought was a homosexual--but their game got out of hand and their victim was blinded. It was Paula Halstead's bad luck to witness the attack and catch a glimpse of one of the boys. After they got through with her, she killed herself. The police have no leads and can't find the culprits. Paula's husband hires a private investigator to do what the police haven't been able to-with no success. Curt Halstead refuses to give up; he will have his vengeance on the men who raped and tortured his wife, even if it means entering into their world of sex, violence, and murder.

The Moving Target
The Moving Target

Author: Ross Macdonald

Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

Published: 2010-12-08

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0307773183

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The first book in Ross Macdonald's acclaimed Lew Archer series introduces the detective who redefined the role of the American private eye and gave the crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity only hinted at before. Like many Southern California millionaires, Ralph Sampson keeps odd company. There's the sun-worshipping holy man whom Sampson once gave his very own mountain; the fading actress with sidelines in astrology and S&M. Now one of Sampson's friends may have arranged his kidnapping. As Lew Archer follows the clues from the canyon sanctuaries of the megarich to jazz joints where you get beaten up between sets, The Moving Target blends sex, greed, and family hatred into an explosively readable crime novel.

Archie Meets Nero Wolfe
Archie Meets Nero Wolfe

Author: Robert Goldsborough

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2012-11-13

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 1453266372

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An “excellent” novel that goes back to 1920s New York to reveal how the famed detective first met his incomparable sidekick (Publishers Weekly, starred review). In 1930, young Archie Goodwin comes to New York City hoping for a bit of excitement. In his third week working as a night watchman, he stops two burglars in their tracks—with a pair of hot lead slugs. Dismissed from his job for being “trigger-happy,” he parlays his newfound notoriety into a job as a detective’s assistant, helping honest sleuth Del Bascom solve cases like the Morningside Piano Heist, the Rive Gauche Art Gallery Swindle, and the Sumner-Hayes Burglary. But it’s the kidnapping of Tommie Williamson, the son of a New York hotel magnate, that introduces Goodwin to the man who will change his life. Goodwin knows there’s only one detective who can help find Tommie: Nero Wolfe, the stout genius of West Thirty-Fifth Street. Together, they’ll form one of the most unlikely crime fighting duos in history—but first Goodwin must locate Tommie and prove that he deserves a place by Wolfe’s side. In this witty story about the origin of a legendary partnership, Robert Goldsborough gloriously evokes the spirit of Nero Wolfe’s creator, bestselling author Rex Stout, and breathes new life into his beloved characters.

Plot Perfect
Plot Perfect

Author: Paula Munier

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-11-14

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1599638142

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Build an Exceptional Plot, One Scene at a Time! Think of your favorite story--the one that kept you turning pages late into the night, the one with a plot so compelling, so multilayered, so perfect that you couldn't put it down. How can you make your own plots--in your novels, short stories, memoirs, or screenplays--just as irresistible? Plot Perfect provides the answer. This one-of-a-kind plotting primer reveals the secrets of creating a story structure that works--no matter what your genre. It gives you the strategies you need to build a scene-by-scene blueprint that will help elevate your fiction and earn the attention of agents and editors. Inside, literary agent, editor, and author Paula Munier shows you how to: • Devise powerful plots and subplots and weave them together seamlessly • Organize your scenes for the greatest impact • Develop captivating protagonists, worthy antagonists, and engaging secondary characters • Use dialogue, setting, tone, and voice to enhance your plot • Layer, refine, and polish your storyline • Define your story in terms of its theme Filled with writing exercises, plotting templates, and expert advice, Plot Perfect helps you dive into the intricacies of plot--and write a compelling story that readers won't be able to resist.

The Archer Files
The Archer Files

Author: Ross Macdonald

Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

Published: 2015-07-21

Total Pages: 593

ISBN-13: 1101910127

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No matter what cases private eye Lew Archer takes on—a burglary, a runaway, or a disappeared person—the trail always leads to tangled family secrets and murder. Widely considered the heir to Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, Archer dug up secrets and bodies in and around Los Angeles. Here, The Archer Files collects all the Lew Archer short stories ever published, along with thirteen unpublished “case notes” and a fascinating biographical profile of Archer by Edgar Award finalist Tom Nolan. Ross Macdonald’s signature staccato prose is the real star throughout this collection, which is both a perfect introduction for the newcomer and a must-have for the Macdonald aficionado.

A Gambling Man
A Gambling Man

Author: David Baldacci

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Published: 2021-04-20

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1538719665

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Aloysius Archer, the straight-talking World War II veteran fresh out of prison, returns in this riveting #1 New York Times bestselling thriller from David Baldacci. The 1950s are on the horizon, and Archer is in dire need of a fresh start after a nearly fatal detour in Poca City. So Archer hops on a bus and begins the long journey out west to California, where rumor has it there is money to be made if you’re hard-working, lucky, criminal—or all three. Along the way, Archer stops in Reno, where a stroke of fortune delivers him a wad of cash and an eye-popping blood-red 1939 Delahaye convertible—plus a companion for the final leg of the journey, an aspiring actress named Liberty Callahan who is planning to try her luck in Hollywood. But when the two arrive in Bay Town, California, Archer quickly discovers that the hordes of people who flocked there seeking fame and fortune landed in a false paradise that instead caters to their worst addictions and fears. Archer’s first stop is a P.I. office where he is hoping to apprentice with a legendary private eye and former FBI agent named Willie Dash. He lands the job, and immediately finds himself in the thick of a potential scandal: a blackmail case involving a wealthy well-connected politician running for mayor that soon spins into something even more sinister. As bodies begin falling, Archer and Dash must infiltrate the world of brothels, gambling dens, drug operations, and long-hidden secrets, descending into the rotten bones of a corrupt town that is selling itself as the promised land—but might actually be the road to perdition, and Archer’s final resting place.

One Good Deed
One Good Deed

Author: David Baldacci

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Published: 2019-07-23

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1538750554

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In this fast-paced historical thriller, the #1 New York Times bestselling author introduces Archer, a WWII veteran forced to investigate a small-town murder -- or risk returning to prison. It's 1949. When war veteran Aloysius Archer is released from Carderock Prison, he is sent to Poca City on parole with a short list of do's and a much longer list of don'ts: do report regularly to his parole officer, don't go to bars, certainly don't drink alcohol, do get a job -- and don't ever associate with loose women. The small town quickly proves more complicated and dangerous than Archer's years serving in the war or his time in jail. Within a single night, his search for gainful employment -- and a stiff drink -- leads him to a local bar, where he is hired for what seems like a simple job: to collect a debt owed to a powerful local businessman, Hank Pittleman. Soon Archer discovers that recovering the debt won't be so easy. The indebted man has a furious grudge against Hank and refuses to pay; Hank's clever mistress has her own designs on Archer; and both Hank and Archer's stern parole officer, Miss Crabtree, are keeping a sharp eye on him. When a murder takes place right under Archer's nose, police suspicions rise against the ex-convict, and Archer realizes that the crime could send him right back to prison . . . if he doesn't use every skill in his arsenal to track down the real killer.