The murder of a wealthy young woman in 1960s Iowa sparks backlash against a hippie commune in this mystery by the New York Times–bestselling author. Iowa, 1968. A hippie commune has invaded the small Midwestern town of Black River Falls. While the majority of the townspeople believe the bohemians, despite their bizarre ways, have the right to stay, there are some who constantly accuse the newcomers of everything from criminal activities to Satanism. Tensions boil over when Vanessa Mainwaring, the teenage daughter of one of the town’s wealthiest men, is found murdered in the commune’s barn. Lawyer and part-time investigator Sam McCain soon finds himself in the middle of the controversy. When a troubled young Vietnam vet named Neil Cameron is immediately charged with the crime, Sam has his doubts. As Black River Falls comes apart at the seams, it’s up to Sam to keep the fragile peace while searching for a vicious killer. “The kind of hero any small town could take to its heart.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times
In the thick of the Cold War, McCain investigates death threats against an alleged red The citizens of Black River Falls are polite, understanding, and respectful—except when it comes to communism. Joe McCarthy has been dead for two years, but men like Richard Conners are still fighting to clear themselves of his accusations. A liberal who served faithfully under Roosevelt and Truman, only to be slandered as a red during McCarthy’s witch hunts, Conners has begun getting death threats written in blood. He hires private investigator Sam McCain to protect him, but no sooner has Sam taken the case than Conners turns up dead. The local sheriff gives McCain twenty-four hours to find his client’s killer. Although the obvious suspect is one of the local red haters, McCain isn’t positive that politics is the motive. In Black River Falls, murder is never cut and dried.
On the eve of the March on Washington, racial tensions flare in McCain’s small town In the summer of 1963, freedom riders are crisscrossing the South, Martin Luther King is preparing for a march on Washington, and the people of Black River Falls, Iowa, are about to go to the polls. Senator Williams is cruising to reelection when a blackmailer starts sending him photos of his daughter arm in arm with a handsome black student. To save his campaign, Williams hires private investigator Sam McCain to talk sense into the crook, but the blackmailer is nowhere to be found—until McCain discovers him behind his shack, dead in the dirt, with a handsome black corpse beside him. TV crews arrive with the police, to broadcast the horrible scene across the state. As Black River Falls threatens to erupt into all-out race war, Iowa will have much more to worry about than Election Day. Searching for the savage killer, McCain learns that quiet prejudice can be the most dangerous kind of all.
Iowa lawyer Sam McCain is out to solve the murder of a Korean War vet in this 1960s-era mystery by the New York Times–bestselling author of Bad Moon Rising. Iowa, 1965. For small-town lawyer and part-time investigator Sam McCain, the free love era isn’t all that free or loving. The alcoholic judge he works for just finished a stint in rehab; the beautiful colleague he’d been pining for has gone back to her husband; and an old friend recently came home from Vietnam in a coffin. It all makes guys like Harrison Doran—the handsome, outspoken antiwar activist who stands to inherit millions—difficult to stomach. So when local war hero Lou Bennett is murdered after an altercation at a protest rally and Harrison is arrested for the crime, it’s Sam’s job to defend the loudmouthed ladies’ man. But Sam soon discovers there’s more to Lou’s past than the time he spent overseas. And as he watches his provincial hometown of Black River Falls transform to the sounds of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and the Beatles, Sam begins to wonder if the good old days were ever all that great.
The annual collection edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg available in a hardcover limited edition signed by ALL contributors including: Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, Mary Higgins Clark, and others!
A “genuinely affecting” mystery set in small-town Iowa in the 1950s (The Wall Street Journal). Sam McCain loves Buddy Holly because he’s the only rock-and-roll star who still seems like a dweeb, and Sam knows how that feels. With the unrequited love of his life at his side, Sam drives more than three hours through the snow to watch his idol play the Surf Ballroom. That night, Buddy Holly dies in the most famous plane crash in music history, but Sam has no time to grieve. Because there are too many lawyers in this small town, Sam makes a living as a PI, doing odd jobs for an eccentric judge—whose nephew, it seems, has a problem only a detective could solve. His trophy wife has been murdered, and as soon as Sam arrives, the nephew kills himself, too. The police see this as a clear-cut murder-suicide, but Sam wants to know more, diving into a mystery by Ellery Queen Award–winning author Ed Gorman that will get dangerous faster than you can say “bye-bye, Miss American Pie.”
Political fixer Dev Conrad realizes there’s more at stake than a mere election when an assassination attempt is made on a US congresswoman. Political consultant Dev Conrad is doing his best to help secure a reelection victory for Congresswoman Jessica Bradshaw, who’s fighting a fierce battle against her far-right opponent, Michael Dorsey. But the campaign is thrown into chaos when an assassination attempt is made on Jessica’s life. She survives—and suddenly finds herself leading the race. But when the shotgun used in the shooting is found in the trunk of one of Jessica’s staffers, the “assassination attempt” suddenly looks staged to win votes. With Jessica’s campaign in ruins, Dev is determined to find out who wants Jessica dead . . . and someone else is just as determined to keep Dev from finding out. This is book five in the Dev Conrad Mysteries. “Give this one to fans of the great Ross Thomas, whose political fixers were equally savvy and equally weary.” —Booklist “Readers of all political stripes will have as much fun following the maneuverings of Bradshaw’s and Dorsey’s respective campaigns as trying to figure out whodunit.” —Publishers Weekly
Spur Award-Winning Author ED GORMAN The money is phony but the murders are real… A COUNTERFEITING RING WITH MORE THAN INK ON ITS HANDS... Secret Service Agent Dev Mallory didn't get to be the best playing by the rules. He's trained to kill, but only as a last resort—because murder has a way of coming back at you... Not too many counterfeiters have outwitted Secret Service Agent Dev Mallory. President Cleveland handpicked him to shut down an elaborate counterfeiting scheme in Denver before it floods the West with funny money and collapses the U.S. economy. The Denver operation might be the best Dev has ever seen, thanks to a corrupt government engraver who's probably outlived his usefulness. Suspected ring members are already turning up dead-and a trusted Secret Service agent has been murdered. But when unexpected ties and betrayals from the past catch up with Dev, the cost of solving this counterfeiting case could include his own life... "Simply one of the best Western writers of our time."—Rocky Mountain News "An underappreciated master."—Booklist
A PLACE TO DIE FOR... Dr. Richard Candlemas's academy had been the place where Meredith Sawyer grew up—a place she had spent her adult life trying to forget. The school's charismatic founder had been gifted with telekinetic powers and an undeniable brilliance, and so had the special children he recruited. A MIND TO KILL FOR... Meredith tried to forget the frightening energies the children learned to unleash with their minds...and the secrets that had drawn her sister into Candlemas's inner circle of favorites. Now her sister was long dead and Meredith was a gutsy Chicago reporter with Candlemas's school as only a bad memory. A TERROR TO SCREAM FOR... Or so she thought. Then police detective Tom Gage showed up, investigating a bizarre murder of an old academy teacher. Journeying down the twisted alleyways of the past might lead to the answers Gage needed...or sweep Meredith into a vortex of terror. For the truth about Candlemas could foretell terrible destruction—and put Meredith and Gage in an electrifying race with death.
When his wife is accused of murder after a dark secret from her past is unearthed, U.S. Marshal Lane Morgan must race against time to unmask the real killer and clear his wife's name. Original.
There is a body in a gazebo, and the chief suspect is not long for this world Small-town lawyer and private detective Sam McCain is enjoying a cocktail party, dancing with a lovelier specimen than his five-foot-five-inch frame usually attracts, when the hostess confronts him with a problem the likes of which Good Housekeeping has never seen. There is a corpse in the backyard gazebo, and the party is definitely over. The murdered girl was the twenty-year-old daughter of the town’s Cadillac dealer, a troubled young woman with a self-destructive streak. The police focus their investigation on her drag-racing boyfriend, local bad boy David Egan, whom McCain agrees to defend. When Egan dies in a freak car accident, the case seems closed. But examining the hot rod shows a cut brake line—and a motive for a killing far more complicated than good girl gone bad.
DARK WHISPERS & Other Stories Ed Gorman was an American writer and short fiction anthologist who has published in almost every genre, but is best known for his work in the crime, mystery, western, and horror fields. This collections of eleven crime/mystery stories, with an introduction by the author, contains such classics as Dark Muse, False Idols, The Man in the Long Black Sedan and Dark Whispers.
ED GORMAN Bestselling Author of Shadow Games “Gorman’s writing is strong, fast and sleek as a bullet. He’s one of the best.”—Dean Koontz Seventeen stories. Seventeen slices of terror. Seventeen trips into the shadows. Whether it takes place in small town America, a lonely highway at night, the near future, or the Old West, the real setting of each tale is the realm of nightmare, the place where imagination and fear reign. "A master storyteller."—Dallas Morning News No one knows this eerie realm more intimately than Ed Gorman, award-winning author and master of dark suspense. Now, for the first time, his greatest tales of horror and the unknown are collected in one volume, a compendium of the fantastic and the terrifying, the chilling and the grotesque. Brace yourself as you get ready to experience ... THE DARK FANTASTIC With a Special Introduction by Bentley Little "One of the most original thriller writers around."—Kirkus "Gorman is a class act. He's up there with Dean Koontz and Thomas Harris."—Crime Time (UK) "Gorman knows exactly how to keep the reader on the edge of his seat."—Science Fiction Chronicle
Gorman's writing is strong, fast and sleek as a bullet."-DEAN R KOONTZ "Gorman is the poet of dark suspense."-BLOOMSBURY REVIEW THE MASTER OF DARK SUSPENSE IN A QUIET MIDWESTERN CITY... ...A community is coming apart at the seams. He is a mild-mannered academic turned serial killer being hunted for crimes he doesn't recognize as his own. She is a TV anchorwoman losing the ratings game—and the only person who understands the evil that drives him. Between them, an innocent young girl's life hangs in the balance... IN AN EMPTY APARTMENT IN THE CITY... ...He has found a manila envelope that holds gruesome photographs of his past deeds and instructions for his next killing. Despite himself, he will follow the instructions as if they were his own will... IN THE DARK STREET SHADOWS... ...The police scramble furiously to understand him and stop him, while a TV reporter is onto the story of a lifetime. She knows who he is... and who his next victim will be. What she doesn't know is how little time she has left—and how terrible is the power of the Serpent's Kiss...<
Crime fiction’s biggest names have been rounded up for a truly impressive collection of 2008’s best short stories. Featuring authors like Michael Connelly, Charlaine Harris, and 2009 Edgar Award winner T. Jefferson Parker, this volume should be on the shelf of every mystery fan.
Spur Award-Winning Author ED GORMAN "Simply one of the best western writers of our time."—Rocky Mountain News Ray Coyle used to be a gunfighter. One of the best. He had built quite a name for himself throughout the West. Then he packed it all in and got an honest job in a travelling Wild West show, giving sharpshooting exhibitions. It wasn't much, but at least he could try to put his past behind him. He tried for ten years. But when he got word that his boy had been killed in a gunfight in Coopersville, he just had to go there—to bring the body home, if nothing else. But there were a lot of guilty consciences in Coopersville, folks who knew that when the old gunfighter stepped off the train, he was bringing something else with him...trouble.
Spur Award-Winning Author ED GORMAN Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord... Father Pete Madsen is a man torn by conscience. Ever since the Civil War, he has devoted his life to the church in an attempt to make penance for his bloody deeds of heroism—with his faith as his only weapon against the evils of the world. That faith is tested when his best friend leaves town to confront the man who unjustly put him in jail—and returns in a pine box. Harder to take is the knowledge that the person responsible is Tom Rattigan, a depraved wretch of a man, truly beyond redemption of any kind—and Madsen's lifelong nemesis. But when the murdered man's daughter leaves to seek her own vengeance against Rattigan, Father Pete will have to put aside the cloth, his faith, and his conscience to save her at the risk of his life—and his soul...
“Gorman’s writing is strong, fast and sleek as a bullet. He’s one of the best.”—Dean Koontz It all started so innocently. It was just a group of buddies meeting for a weekly poker game. No harm done—until the night an intruder broke in while they were playing. They didn't mean to kill him, that was an accident. They thought if they threw the body in the river no one would ever know. That's where they were wrong. Dead wrong. The intruder hadn't come alone. His friend was waiting for him outside the house and he saw it all. Suddenly the game had changed. What had started out as a simple poker game now became a game of cat and mouse. The stakes were raised too—to life and death. And it looked like the attacker in the shadows held all the cards. "Scary because it's so plausible, and because Gorman knows exactly how to keep the reader on the edge of his seat."—Science Fiction Chronicle “One of Gorman’s strongest yet . . . a sense of menace that grows until it becomes almost palpable.”—Forthcoming Mysteries
Spur Award-Winning Author ED GORMAN> STIRRING UP TROUBLE When Stephen Payne rode into Favor to investigate the death of his younger brother, Art, he figured he'd have his work cut out for him. The rumor spreading through town was that Art had robbed a stagecoach and then hanged himself. Art had a history of trouble, so he might have committed the robbery—but suicide? Stephen had his doubts. Favor was a town on the downside of a small silver boom, a town full of secrets. But Stephen owed it to his kid brother to cut through the secrets—and the lies—no matter what the cost. "Simply one of the best Western writers of our time." —Rocky Mountain News
Guild the bounty hunter just wants to collect his latest reward, but a beautiful woman, a man from his past, and a wild lynch mob are going to do all they can to make sure Guild sticks around--even if it means his death. Original.
With the best of these stories, Ed Gorman not only transcends the genre of crime fiction, he takes it on an entirely new direction."—REFLECTIONS PRISONERS & OTHER STORIES In a recent interview, Ed Gorman said that his work is essentially about "Outsiders trying to strike some sort of weary bargain with a hostile world.” The prize-winning stories collected here certainly reflect that theme. From the young man visiting his father in prison—to the teenage girl trying to escape the grip of her mother's boyfriend—to the father searching for his daughter's murderer... these are people we see every day, yet did not know intimately until now. As Reflections noted, "Ed Gorman is a serious writer with a voice and vision all his own . . .” And, in the words of The San Francisco Chronicle, "Ed Gorman has a wonderful style of writing that allows him to say things of substance in an entertaining way.” Prisoners offers the reader a variety of moods and styles—from the mournful beauty of “The Wind From Midnight" to the hard-boiled sorrow of “Failed Prayers" to the bitter power of the Shamus-winning “Turn Away." Here you'll find crime, horror and mainstream stories by the writer whose first novel, Rough Cut, Library Journal called "An auspicious debut” and whose most recent novel, The Night Remembers, The San Diego Chronicle said made Gorman “One of today's best crime writers." Prisoners also contains a warm and witty Afterword by best-selling author Dean R. Koontz.
Spur Award-Winning Author - ED GORMAN A KILLER IN TOWN When notorious gunslinger Stephen Fuller came to Cedar Rapids, it became Anna Toland's job, as matron of the town jail to see to it that he didn't create any trouble in town before he left—and that he left as soon as possible. But by nightfall a man was dead, Fuller was on the run, and everyone was sure the gunslinger was guilty. Everyone except Anna. No one in town would listen to what a woman had to say about murder or the law, so Anna had to set out on her own to find the real killer. But before she could do that, she would uncover shocking, long-buried secrets that threatened to tear the quiet town apart. "Simply one of the best Western writers of our time." —Rocky Mountain News "A master storyteller." —Dallas Morning News
In an effort to catch a child killer, former FBI agent Robert Payne poses as a journalist to interview three suspects in a small Iowa town: an art teacher, a honey seller and an evangelist.
One of the most original thriller writers around." —Kirkus Reviews DIFFERENT KINDS OF DEAD AND OTHER TALES A mysterious and beautiful girl who teaches arrogant young men about true love A lonely traveling salesman who learns that his passenger is death Children who can absorb the psychic pain of their parents A desperately pursued serial killer who hides his face under gauze in a hospital room A woman who loves the alien infant nobody else wants These stories and ten others make up the new Ed Gorman collection Different Kinds of Dead and Other Tales, stories that have earned him such accolades as "One of the most original writers in crime fiction today" (Kirkus) and "One of the world's great storytellers" (Million, UK). Here you'll find the extraordinary range of storytelling skill and powerful emotions that won Gorman the prized International Fiction award and caused Mystery News to say of his previous collection: "A powerful, disturbing, often poetic collection filled with writing that is a model of clarity and right narrative control.
Ed Gorman Spur Award Winning Author SECRETS... Hastings Corner was one of those quiet New England towns where families lived for generation after generation, a good place to settle and raise your kids. Or was it? Because Hastings Corner had an unusually high accidental death rate among its female population. Dr. Abby Stewart was all too familiar with this statistic. Her best friend Laura had died tragically and her own daughter Jenna had also met with an unexpectedly early end. And Abby was becoming convinced there was nothing accidental about it. For she, Laura, Jenna, and Laura's daughter Greer all shared a very special secret—one which might have been the death of Laura and Jenna, one which could place Abby and Greer in terrible peril. They were witches—and not the Halloween variety, or followers of Wicca either. They were members of a small, select, and endangered subset of the human race whose genetic makeup gave them gifts of healing, of mind control, and other powers which could be used for the good of humankind or as weapons in a desperate war of survival. And for Abby Stewart and Greer Morgan that battle to survive was about to begin.... "No writer of popular fiction is more consistently readable and challenging than Ed Gorman." —Ellery Queen Magazine “One of the most original thriller writers around.” —Kirkus
Spur Award-Winning Author ED GORMAN YOU CAN'T PUT A BULLET IN WHAT'S KILLING THIS TOWN.... Bryce Lamont's hot on the trail of his former partners in crime. He wants a share of the loot that got them rich—and put him in prison. Surprisingly, he finds his old gang riding the straight and narrow in Wyatt, Wisconsin. He also finds that an outbreak of malaria is taking down Wyatt's townspeople one by one.... Getting his money is easier than Bryce expected. But things get more complicated when a gang of thieves cleans out the bank, robbing Lamont of something money can't replace. Now he's ready and willing to make them pay. But can he fight the fever long enough to make the outlaws burn? "Simply one of the best Western writers of our time."—Rocky Mountain News
After his young daughter is killed during a bank robbery, Septemus Ryan is out of his mind with grief. Her voice haunts him from the grave, urging him to seek justice above the law. In August 1898, James Hogan celebrates his birthday by accompanying his uncle Septemus on a trip to the agricultural fair. But early on in the trip it becomes apparent to young James that his uncle has other plans in mind. This is no regular trip to the fair, but a journey of revenge against the three men who killed Clarice. James witnesses his uncle plunge deeper and deeper into despair and madness while encountering more than his share of gunslingers, executioners, and ladies of the night in this taut, powerful tale of grief and vengeance, and coming of age.
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