Hostage for a Hood and The Merriweather File by Lionel White_image

Litchfield Reviews Hostage for a Hood and The Merriweather File for the Lancashire Post

Litchfield Reviews Hostage for a Hood and The Merriweather File for the Lancashire Post: In two top-notch crime capers from the 1950s, a car accident steers an innocent woman into the thick of a violent armoured car robbery, and dark marital revelations surface after a dead body is found in the trunk of a salesman’s car. Influential American crime writer Lionel White is often described as the master of the big caper. His 1955 novel Clean Break was adapted by Stanley Kubrick as the basis for the film noir classic The Killing and a number of White’s other 35 novels have been made into films.

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Litchfield Reviews Fugitive from the Grave for the Lancashire Post

“Identical-twin detectives Peter and Paul Skillen are called on to investigate the strange fate of a missing beggar, a band of shadowy highwaymen, body snatchers, a stalker and a wily thief in the fourth thrilling tale in the Bow Street Rivals mystery series. Set in London in 1817, with the city ‘awash with beggars,’ and

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Lancashire Post Reviews Bill S. Ballinger’s Portrait in Smoke and The Longest Second

“[Bill S.] Ballinger, who died in 1980 at the age of 68, wrote scripts for eight feature films, more than 150 teleplays, 30 books, and in 1961, he won an Edgar Award for one of his teleplays for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. His novels, several of which were made into films, have sold more than ten

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No Harp for My Angel / Booty for a Babe / Eve, It’s Extortion by Carter Brown

Litchfield Reviews No Harp for My Angel, Booty for a Babe, and Eve, It’s Extortion by Carter Brown

Lancashire Post book review by Nicholas Litchfield: Wise-cracking, lecherous homicide detective Lieutenant Al Wheeler investigates the disappearances of pretty ‘˜dames,’ a complex hit-and-run case, and murders at a science fiction convention in three entertaining entries in the phenomenally successful Carter Brown mystery series. Written in the 1950s and long since out-of-print, No Harp for My Angel, Booty for a Babe, and Eve, It’s Extortion are a trio of swift-paced, tongue-in-cheek stories by the incredibly prolific Alan Geoffrey Yates, writing under the house name Carter Brown.

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Cover image of Timberline by Matthew P Mayo

Litchfield Reviews Matthew P. Mayo’s Timberline for the Lancashire Post

Nicholas Litchfield Reviews Matthew P. Mayo’s Timberline for the Lancashire Post: A train journey through northern Oregon turns deadly when thieves blow a safe and set fire to the train, leaving passengers fighting for survival in blizzard conditions. Exciting new western Timberline, the third instalment of Matthew P. Mayo’s action-packed Roamer series, finds his hapless, nomadic protagonist in high danger once more, this time while travelling by railroad to meet his long-time friend and mentor, ‘crusty old mountain man’ Maple Jack.

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Litchfield Reviews Petites Suites by Robert Wexelblatt for the Colorado Review

“Thought-provoking, entertaining, and eloquent, like so many of his stories in Petites Suites, you can’t help but marvel at Wexelblatt’s ability to move and enchant in just a few concise pages. This inspired and truly original story collection is an exquisite joy, offering the equivalent beauty and charm a fine symphony might accomplish.” Published today in

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Lancashire Post Review of Floyd Mahannah’s ‘The Broken Angel and Backfire and Other Stories’ by Lowestoft Chronicle Editor

Floyd Mahannah was a talented but overlooked 1950s writer of hardboiled tales. Although his novels received strong critical reviews and he managed to place his shorter work in numerous popular magazines, Mahannah didn’t achieve the success he was striving for and his writing career fizzled out early. This week, Stark House Press publishes a collection

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Lancashire Post Review of Invigorating Passages: A Lowestoft Chronicle Anthology

Invigorating Passages: A Lowestoft Chronicle Anthology “Invigorating Passages is a rare and dynamic literary collection which grabs readers firmly and sweeps them away to strange and exhilarating places, presenting intriguing situations, colourful characters, and making us yearn to strap on the backpack and go exploring.” —Pam Norfolk, Lancashire Post The latest volume in the Lowestoft

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Litchfield Reviews Flight to Darkness and 77 Rue Paradis by Gil Brewer

Two more welcome suspense novels from Gil Brewer: “In two turbulent, mesmerizing tales from the 1950s, a Korean War veteran gets involved with a troublesome beauty and finds himself caught up in immense family strife and murder, and a disgraced former aircraft manufacturer is blackmailed into treason. Flight to Darkness and 77 Rue Paradis are two

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Cover image of The Men from the Boys by Ed Lacy

Litchfield Reviews Ed Lacy’s ‘The Men from the Boys’

Nicholas Litchfield Reviews Ed Lacy’s ‘The Men from the Boys’ for the Lancashire Post: In a hardboiled 1950s tale of robbery, murder, and retribution, a retired cop turned hotel detective uses his sleuthing skills to track down the gangster responsible for assaulting his stepson. The Men from the Boys, first published by Harper in 1956, is a tough and fast-paced crime novel by Ed Lacy, the pseudonym of Edgar Award-winning American novelist Len Zinberg who died in 1968.

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