Dirk Wallace is handed a simple assignment - find out who's blackmailing Mrs Thorsen's daughter. Before long, Wallace realises that he's up against some very organised crime. And when things turn nasty, there's only one thing to do. Wallace and his assistant quit the Acme Detective Agency and go it alone. There's a score to be settled. And Dirk Wallace doesn't want to have to play by the rules.
Not my thing is a powerful, compulsive novel of betrayal and death from James Hadley Chase, the master of mystery and adventure. Ruthless tycoon Sherman Jamison is determined to have an heir. He will let nothing stand in his way. Yet, not only is his wife unable to provide him with a child, but as a devout Catholic she will not consent to the divorce her husband so desperately wants. And so Jamison decides to get rid of her ... permanently.
Mark Girland's problems begin when a beautiful blonde is found lying on a dark deserted quai in Paris - the initials of the top Chinese atomic scientist tattooed on her upper thigh. The girl is suffering from acute amnesia. Girland, desperate for money, is ordered by the CIA to get any information he can - by posing as her husband. But the appeal of the mission begins to wear thin when Girland discovers he has involved himself in a life and death race to extract vital atomic secrets from the scientist's beautiful mistress.
When Detective Tom Lepski shot down the runaway killer on his beat in Paradise City, he unleashed a chain of events that would involve two sets of criminals and a honeymoon couple in one of the most exciting nights any of them had seen for a long time. Wilbur Warrenton and his beautiful, grasping wife Maria are on their honeymoon in the luxurious Spanish Bay Hotel when their penthouse suite is the scene of a collision between a gang of jewel thieves intent on stealing the famous Warrenton diamonds and a gang of ransom-hungry Cubans - all determined to get exactly what they want - at any cost ...
Jack Crane arrives in Paradise City to find a job lined up for him by his ex-boss Bernie Olson. Bernie, a bomber pilot turned personal pilot to multi-millionaire Lane Essex, wants Jack to fly Essex's new luxury plane in a hijack plan. Planning a hijack shouldn't be that difficult, but they soon discover they didn't account for every eventuality. There's a stowaway passenger on board - Lane's gorgeous wife Victoria - who decides to join the party ...
This is a personal matter. Someone killed my brother. I don't like that. If the police can't take care of it, then I'll bury my own dead." Nick English meant every word, but his efforts to find his brother's killer started a chain reaction of murder and violence that would nearly end his own life. Here is a story of organized blackmail punctuated by sudden and gruesome murder. Written with the punch and speed of a rivet gun, I'll Bury My Dead confirms James Hadley Chase's reputation as a leading writer of all-action, edge-of-your-seat thrillers that demand to be read in a single sitting.
When Chet Carson broke jail he thought he'd found a safe hideout in a lonely filling station. But instead he finds himself caught up in a dangerous threesome - an elderly owner, his gorgeous wife, Lola, and a safe with a fortune inside, which Lola wants. Her chance comes when she uncovers Chet's identity and threatens him with jail unless he opens the safe. Chet is in dead trouble. If he lands in prison again he'll be crucified, but if he opens the safe Lola will pin the rap on him anyway. Somehow there has to be a third way ...
The Russians will pay $4,000,000 for the top secret formula to a revolutionary new metal ... and the CIA will do anything to stop them. American inventor Dr Paul Forrester is the man that both sides want. He alone can decipher the vital code but, for two years, Forrester has been in a mental asylum - ever since that bloody day when he walked in on his beautiful wife and her lover. So it's Nona Jacey, Forrester's former lab assistant, who becomes a helpless pawn in the power struggle to possess the scientist. Because she is the only person that holds the key to unlocking Forrester's mind ...
A man will do almost anything when a rich and beautiful woman offers him fifty thousand dollars just to make a telephone call. But when that telephone call is part of a fake kidnap plan to extract five hundred thousand dollars from one of the richest men in the world, only a sucker would gamble on the deal paying off in his favour. Harry Barber is a sucker. After three and a half years in jail for a crime he didn't commit, with no job and no money, he is the perfect target of a brilliant plan to frame him for the brutal murder of a young girl.
Lucille Aitkin was the kind of woman who encouraged men to run around after her and most men were more than happy to do so - so why did she suddenly want to learn to drive rather than being chauffer-driven in style? And why was Chester Scott's Cadillac covered with bloodstains on the wrong side? And at the same time, why was patrol officer O'Brien run over on a deserted beach road when he should have been on duty on the highway? It seems that somebody knows how these events are connected, and whoever it is seems intent on blackmail.
Sudden death lurks along the canals of Venice ... That's what Don Micklem, millionaire American playboy on the trail of a disappearing one-time British agent, discovers the hard way. Has his quarry been murdered or has he committed treason? Against the backdrop of Venice's sinister waterways, Micklem must fight a ruthless political organization while facing the prospect of a violent death at every turn.
This swift-moving story of murder and suspense culminates in an unexpected and dramatic climax that is the hallmark of a James Hadley Chase novel. Chris Burnett - successful, wealthy and married to the daughter of a multi-millionaire - receives severe brain injuries in a car accident. While convalescing Burnett disappears for 24 hours, during which time a prostitute is brutally murdered and mutilated. Evidence found by a private inquiry points to Burnett. His wife, blackmailed by the inquiry agent, sets out to prove her husband's innocence ...
Clay Burden married his wife Rhonda because he was tired of being on his own. Val had walked out on him - and if he couldn't have Val, maybe marriage might make him forget her. Six years later, working in Paradise City, Clay meets Val again. Married to the sinister Henry Vidal, she's changed: still beautiful and passionate, still compelling, but tense and nervous and driven by odd fears and anxieties. When Clay leaves his job and joins the Vidal empire, what begins as a sneaking feeling of unease hardens into stone cold certainty. Val must be released from the hypnotic influence exerted over her by her husband - even if Clay has to murder to set her free ...
Even for a redhead, Helen Dester was wild - she'd driven one guy to drink and made another jump out of a top-floor window. Glyn Nash realises that to tangle with her will be dangerous. But he has no option if he wants a share of the $750,000 insurance money Helen stands to gain if her husband dies accidentally - or even if he is murdered.
From the moment Helga Rolfe, the elegant wife of one of the richest tycoons, picks up a gum-chewing boy young enough to be her son, events jump back and skid through a series of 180-degree turns. Games of bluff and counter bluff quickly develop into a dangerous and deadly battle and as the action hots up, Chase weaves a fast-moving story of blackmail, intrigue and extortion with a hair-raising climax.
Terry Regan, who'd dropped into the Delaneys' cabin up at Blue Jay Lake to sell them a TV set, took in the situation at a glance. Gilda was young and stunningly attractive. Jack Delany was a vicious, hard-drinking cripple, imprisoned in a wheelchair. Regan should have left them ... but he didn't.
Joey Luck and his daughter Cindy are small-time criminals going nowhere fast, until they join forces with Vin Pinna, a hardened criminal on the run from Miami. They soon begin to set their sights higher and turn their hands to kidnapping. But their hostage, ex-movie star Don Elliot, seems to have different ideas. When he wants in they form a 'quartet in crime', and this time the stakes are higher still - eight Russian stamps worth a million dollars. 'Realistic and suspenseful far beyond his average' Observer
When Dave Fenner is hired to solve the Blandish kidnapping, he knows the odds on finding the girl are against him - the cops are still looking for her three months after the ransom was paid. And the kidnappers, Riley and his gang, have disappeared into thin air. But what none of them knows is that Riley himself has been wiped out by a rival gang - and the heiress is now in the hands of Ma Grisson and her son Slim, a vicious killer who can't stay away from women, especially his beautiful new captive. By the time Fenner begins to close in on them, some terrible things have happened to Miss Blandish ...
Veda Rux, a beautiful blonde, known professionally as a stripper, steals a priceless Cellini dagger from the safe in millionaire Lindsay Brett's home. Her agent, Cornelius Gorman, approaches Floyd Jackson, a private investigator and first-rate blackmailer, and asks him to return the dagger before the theft is discovered. Jackson should have known there was something wrong with the whole situation, but, blinded by the beauty of Veda and more money than he had ever seen, he agreed to the proposition. From the moment he fell in love with Veda, his doom was sealed—he was caught up in a relentless intrigue that made him a cat's-paw for murder.
For years the worldwide operations of a mysterious and ruthless extortioner who calls himself the Tortoise have baffled Scotland Yard and the police forces of Europe. But the Tortoise makes a mistake when he interferes with wealthy American playboy Don Micklem, who has friends in high places, and soon tracks him to his lair ... 'The thriller maestro of the generation' Manchester Evening News
Johnny Bianda is a man with a dream. He wants to own a boat off the coast of Florida and he only needs $186,000 to buy it. He steals the money from his firm, knowing that one day they'll notice and one day they'll kill him for it - after all, it is the Mafia. But for Johnny Bianda, the risk is worth taking and he knows it will be at least a year before they catch up with him. Unfortunately for Bianda, the knock on his door comes sooner than he thinks ...
When a small-time clerk insures his life for $50,000 and then suddenly dies ten days later, it doesn't take a genius to work out something suspicious is going on. So when Maddox, the top man in the insurance business, finds out, he is determined to get to the bottom of it. And this means trouble for someone. In fact, it means trouble for the beautiful, auburn-haired Meg Barlowe, a woman with a serious past. 'The thriller maestro of the generation' Manchester Evening News
Chet Logan, known as the Axe Killer, escapes from custody while being escorted to jail. Disguised as a police officer, he meets up with movie writer Perry Weston and persuades him to drive to Weston's remote fishing lodge. Once there, and somewhat to Weston's surprise, Logan agrees to talk about his life and how he came to murder six people. The police become suspicious and put a watch on the lodge. Then Weston's wayward wife visits him and promises a fresh start. Logan wants money and a chance to start again ... Can either of them deliver or will Weston and Logan share a double funeral?
Keith Devery, burdened with a criminal record, arrives in Wicksteed, a prosperous little town on the Pacific coast. He is looking for any job that will provide eating money. It is when he meets Beth Marshall - whose husband, a local drunk, is to inherit $1,000,000 - that he realises there's a way to get back in the big league. Together they ruthlessly plot the perfect murder, but Keith soon finds himself at the centre of a double-bluff. Beth has plans of her own once the money is hers ...
George Fraser, a lonely, timid fellow, lives in a dream world of gangsters, gunfights and beautiful women. He begins to imagine himself as the toughest gangster of them all to bolster up his feeling of inferiority. But George boasts once too often - and to the wrong person. From that moment on, harmless George is caught up in a deadly net of intrigue, and finds himself committing the deadliest act of all ... 'An intelligent and harshly revealing piece of work with not a little serious penetration and power' The Times
She came out of his past to threaten his future Out of Jefferson Halliday's past comes Rima Marshall. She's got nothing to lose - she's sunk just about as far as a woman can go. But she knows enough to put Jefferson in the hot seat. And he knows she knows. With the deck stacked against him, blackmail becomes a deadly weapon to fool around with ... 'The thriller maestro of the generation' Manchester Evening News
Like most bank managers, Dave Calvin had acquired an irresistible charm that he could switch on whenever he felt the necessity. Underneath it he was cold, calculating, brutal - a perfect murderer. For years he had waited - watching an endless stream of money pass through his hands - knowing that a risk was only worth taking if the reward was justified. And a $300,000 payroll was justification enough - even for murder ...
Eve: mysterious, tantalizing, alluring, wanton. Deep within this desirable but strange girl burns the violent fire that could destroy a man. Clive Thurston had swindled his way to fame. He thought he knew the ropes and women. Maybe he did. But he didn't know Eve, otherwise he'd have realized that he was just another fly stumbling into the deadly web of a woman who was beautiful to look at, but lethal to love.
Steve Manson's magazine dealt in corruption: he attacked the rich, the powerful and the famous - and he made enemies. In a job like that, you couldn't afford to have dirty secrets of your own. With the whole town itching for you to make a slip, it was like living in a goldfish bowl. But Steve had lived clean - until his beautiful, extravagant wife was caught shoplifting, and suddenly he was up to his neck in the dirtiest secrets of all - blackmail and murder.
James Hadley Chase gives us a tough, hard-boiled story crammed with action, grotesque situations, and weird characters. Not a word is wasted. From the first page to the last you are involved in a sinister and compelling situation, that will hurtle you forward with the speed of an express train.
Farrell Brannigan, President of the National Californian Bank, is an extremely successful man. So when he builds another bank in an up-and-coming town on the Pacific coast, he is given worldwide publicity, and this new bank is hailed as the 'safest bank in the world'. But Brannigan's success comes at a price and he makes enemies on his way up the ladder. It seems one of them is now set on revenge and determined to destroy both the bank and Brannigan himself.
Mark Girland, good-for-nothing secret agent with a distinct weakness for money and women, finds himself in Prague for his latest adventure. But events in the Communist country prove all too much for Girland as he comes face-to-face with a sinister world of deception, fraud and corruption. 'The same compulsive readability and sheer hard story-telling as in every other' Sheffield Telegraph
When Johnny Jackson unaccountably disappears, his grandfather contacts the police for help. As they prove to be uninterested, he turns instead to Colonel Parnell of the Parnell Detective Agency. It seems at first to be a simple case of a missing person but they soon find themselves in the middle of a complicated web of deceit, intrigue and murder.
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