WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN?

It was a message from a dead man. A small piece of paper worth a fortune in blood. Eight mysterious symbols that marked the beginning of a chain of violence executed by gangsters willing to kill for a code they did not understand. Only one man called the shots for this riddle: The Chief, whose reputation made any further identification unnecessary — and lethal.

Obviously a case for THE SHADOW — a cryptic message, a series of baffling murders, seemingly unrelated, and an invisible mastermind who choreographed killings for the highest stakes in town. THE SHADOW was on a trail leading straight to a brilliant trap — and a face-to-face encounter with a criminal genius determined to beat him at his own game!

Originally published in Shadow Magazine, Volume II, #4, May 1932

Somewhere in western New York there's a remote mountaintop in the moonlight, its dark forests and moon-dappled meadows populated only by corpses, and if ex-PI Joe Kurtz doesn't unravel the secret of that place in five days, he'll be one of them.

Everyone seems to want a piece of Kurtz and most succeed in getting one. Unknown assailants gun down Kurtz and his female parole officer, giving Kurtz the headache of a lifetime but putting pretty Peg O'Toole on life support. While working his own case through a haze of concussion migraine, Kurtz has to deal with Toma Gonzaga, the gay don who owes Kurtz a blood debt, and Angelina Farino Ferrara, the female don who is after Kurtz's body — or maybe just his head.

And while someone is murdering all the heroin addicts in Buffalo and hauling away the bodies, a serial killer called the Artful Dodger hatches his twisted plan.

In Kurtz's corner is police detective Rigby King, a beautiful woman who was his lover when they were both rebellious teenagers in Father Baker's Orphanage. Rigby also has designs on Joe Kurtz, but whether they're aimed at bedding or abetting him, helping him stay alive, or simply putting him away for life, Kurtz will have to discover the hard way.

There's a bitter wind brewing in Buffalo, New York and it's blowing in more than just snow. "Little Skag" Farino, the last don of the local crime family, wants Kurtz dead and is sending in platoons of hit men, starting with the Attica Three Stooges and working up through more competent killers. Little Skag's beautiful sister, Angelina Farino Ferrara, is back from seven years in Sicily and has her own deadly agenda for Kurtz.

If that isn't enough, Kurtz is approached by a dying concert violinist who wants his daughter's killer found. Rejecting the case at first, he is soon on the trail of a man who's not just the murderer of one child, but a cold-blooded serial killer who is a master of alternate identities and has the power to send a hundred men after Kurtz. As the bodies pile up like cords of wood, HARD FREEZE hits town with the power of a whiteout blizzard and builds to a truly chilling climax. This is a crime novel where trigger fingers freeze to blue steel.

What’s more dangerous than gambling with dirty money? Mick Trubble is just the man to find out.

Dealing with a bout of post-case depression leads Mick to the casinos, where he quickly accumulates a pile of debt to dangerous people. It’s only when he meets a beautiful, mysterious woman named Faye that his luck begins to change.

Faye teaches him the skills of winning at the tables, and together they start a mutually beneficial partnership to con the dealers. But when Mick digs into Faye’s mysterious life, he discovers more than just a troubled past.

Beating the odds at the casinos might not be Mick’s biggest challenge. When you play the game of hearts, all bets are on the table, and the game becomes more dangerous than ever before.

Hard Luck Grift is a direct prequel to New Haven Blues, exploring events that directly tie into the debut novel of the Troubleshooter.

Joe Kurtz has been wronged one too many times. So when he takes out the drugdealing thug who killed his girlfriend, the exPI gets to cool his heels for 11 years in Attica. It's there that he meets "Little Skag" Farino, the son of an aging Buffalo, New York, mob boss. In exchange for protecting the kid's manhood against any unwanted jailhouse affection, Kurtz gets an audience with Little Skag's father upon his release from prison.

Semiretired Don Byron Farino is still clinging to what dwindling power he holds on the New York organized crime scene. He enlists Kurtz's help to track down the Family's missing accountanta man with too much knowledge of Family business to have on the loose. But someone doesn't want the accountant found. As the story twists and turns and the body count rises, Kurtz no longer knows whom he can trust. Everyone seems to be after something, from the mob boss's sultry yet dangerous daughter, to a hit man named The Dane, an albino killer who is good with a knife, and a dwarf who is armed to the teeth and hellbent on revenge.

Bestselling author Dan Simmons expertly builds the tension as he springs one surprise after another, all the while daring the reader to take a ride with Kurtz through the cold, windy streets of Buffalo where one wrong move could mean a bellyfull of lead.

Murder of a Genius

When a mechanical genius is murdered at the moment of his greatest invention, THE SHADOW decodes a plan of linked deaths and traps a master killer in a bizarre and brilliant intrigue…

As originally published in “The Shadow Magazine,” September, 1932.

Keller’s a hit man. For years now he’s had places to go and people to kill.

But enough is enough. He’s got money in the bank and just one last job standing between him and retirement. So he carries it out with his usual professionalism, and he heads home, and guess what?

One more job. Paid in advance, so what’s he going to do? Give the money back? In Des Moines, Keller stalks his designated target and waits for the client to give him the go-ahead. And one fine morning he’s picking out stamps for his collection (Sweden 1–5, the official reprints) at a shop in Urbandale when somebody guns down the charismatic governor of Ohio.

Back at his motel, Keller’s watching TV when they show the killer’s face. And there’s something all too familiar about that face…

Keller calls his associate Dot in White Plains, but there is no answer. He’s stranded halfway across the country, every cop in America’s just seen his picture, his ID and credit cards are no longer good, and he just spent almost all of his cash on the stamps.

Now what?

A man named Nicholas Edwards lives in New Orleans renovating houses, doing honest work and making decent money at it. Between his family and his stamp collection, all his spare time is happily accounted for. Sometimes it's hard to remember that he used to kill people for a living.

But when the nation's economy tanks, taking the construction business with it, all it takes is one phone call to drag him back into the game. It may say Nicholas Edwards on his driver's license and credit cards, but he's back to being the man he always was: Keller.

Keller's work takes him to New York, the former home he hasn't dared revisit, where his target is the abbot of a midtown monastery. Another call puts him on a West Indies cruise, with several interesting fellow passengers-the government witness, the incandescent young woman keeping the witness company, and, sharing Keller's cabin, his wife, Julia. But the high drama comes in Cheyenne, where a recent widow is looking to sell her husband's stamp collection...

In HIT ME, legendary Edgar Grandmaster andNew York Timesbestselling author Lawrence Block returns to one of his most beloved characters. Welcome back, Keller. You've been missed.

A man named Nicholas Edwards lives in New Orleans renovating houses, doing honest work and making decent money at it. Between his family and his stamp collection, all his spare time is happily accounted for. Sometimes it's hard to remember that he used to kill people for a living.

But when the nation's economy tanks, taking the construction business with it, all it takes is one phone call to drag him back into the game. It may say Nicholas Edwards on his driver's license and credit cards, but he's back to being the man he always was: Keller.

Keller's work takes him to New York, the former home he hasn't dared revisit, where his target is the abbot of a midtown monastery. Another call puts him on a West Indies cruise, with several interesting fellow passengers-the government witness, the incandescent young woman keeping the witness company, and, sharing Keller's cabin, his wife, Julia. But the high drama comes in Cheyenne, where a recent widow is looking to sell her husband's stamp collection...

In HIT ME, legendary Edgar Grandmaster andNew York Timesbestselling author Lawrence Block returns to one of his most beloved characters. Welcome back, Keller. You've been missed.

What would you do if you were a DEAD RINGER for a DICTATOR?

If you were small-time grifter Walter Harsh, recovering in a hospital with a broken arm, you’d listen to a proposition that could net you a cool $50,000 for impersonating the South American strongman you resemble. You’d pay attention when the dictator’s sultry mistress started putting the moves on you. And in the dead of night, when no one was watching, you might just hatch a plot to get it all for yourself: the money, the girl, and the stash of stolen loot she’s conspiring to spirit out of the country…

From Publishers Weekly

Smalltime con artist Walter Harsh is lured into international intrigue in this old-fashioned pulp thriller from the creator of Doc Savage. A mysterious man known only as Mr. Brother recruits Harsh and his girlfriend and sidekick, Vera Sue Crosby, into a complex scam involving a South American strongman's beautiful former mistress, a corrupt physician and an Arab financial mastermind. As the plotters await political chaos and the Peron-like dictator's flight from his country, Harsh prepares to impersonate the dictator as part of an embezzlement plot beyond his wildest imaginings. Originally written in 1956, Dent's story suffers from both an unlikely identical strangers premise and the casual sexism of its era, but the elaborate twists of the caper effectively draw the reader into a hard-boiled, violent and authentically gritty tale in the best pulp style.