Lancashire Post

Lead With Your Left and The Best That Ever Did It by Ed Lacy

Litchfield Reviews Lead With Your Left and The Best That Ever Did It by Ed Lacy

Lancashire Post book review by Nicholas Litchfield: Using the pseudonym Ed Lacy, American novelist Len Zinberg achieved fame as a writer of critically successful mysteries in the 1950s and ’60s. Winner of an Edgar Award for best novel in 1957 for Room to Swing, a typically hard-hitting story featuring African-American private detective Toussaint Moore, Lacy’s thirty novels have sold more than 28 million copies. Lead With Your Left and The Best That Ever Did It, two of the author’s finest works, are a pair of taut, fast-paced detective stories that are noted for their gritty realism and sharply defined central characters.

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Litchfield Reviews End of the Line by Bert and Dolores Hitchens

“Born Julia Clara Catherine Dolores Robbins, prolific American novelist and playwright Dolores Hitchens began her career as a hospital nurse, and then a teacher, before becoming a successful professional writer. From 1938 until her death in 1973, she published forty books, utilising four nom-de-plumes. Her suspense novel The Watcher was adapted for the television series

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Litchfield Reviews So Many Doors by Oakley Hall

First published by Random House in 1950, So Many Doors is the debut novel by Pulitzer Prize-nominated American writer Oakley Hall, an English professor emeritus at UC Irvine and author of 25 books, who died in 2008. During his distinguished career, Hall won numerous awards, including the Wrangler Award and the Western Writers of America

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Litchfield Reviews The Red Scarf and A Killer is Loose by Gil Brewer

Hugely popular and prolific during the 1950s, selling millions of copies of paperback originals, the late Gil Brewer is considered one of the best American crime writers of his era. Between 1950 and the late 1970s, he authored hundreds of short stories and dozens of novels, including The Red Scarf and A Killer is Loose,

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Litchfield Reviews The Count of 9 by Erle Stanley Gardner

In a thrilling 1950s tale from one of the most successful mystery writers of all time, detective duo Bertha Cool and Donald Lam investigate the theft of two precious jade idols and the baffling murder of their millionaire client, found dead from a poisoned dart in a double-locked room.

Nicholas Litchfield’s review of The Count of 9 is featured today in the Lancashire Post and syndicated to 20 newspapers in the UK.

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Litchfield Reviews Cape Diamond by Ron Corbett

“Dark, gory, and cinematic, with a constant ominous tone, Cape Diamond is a compelling crime tale with plenty of shocks, surprises, and visceral thrills.” Former Ottawa newspaper columnist and radio host Ron Corbett received high praise for his debut novel, Ragged Lake, the first in a three-book deal he signed with Toronto’s ECW Press. The

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Litchfield Reviews Solemn Graves by James R. Benn

“Solemn Graves is another must-read entry in the outstanding Billy Boyle Second World War mysteries, offering fascinating details about the unique, thousand-man military unit known as the Ghost Army whose courageous acts of tactical deception are estimated to have saved tens of thousands of soldier’s lives.” Set in the summer of 1944, this is the

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Litchfield Reviews Poughkeepsie Shuffle by Dietrich Kalteis

“Full of jaw-smacking fistfights, rip-roaring car chases, and gun-blazing gang battles, Poughkeepsie Shuffle delivers a mighty thump of thrills and spills, and carloads of mean-tempered sons of bitches.” Dietrich Kalteis, the author of the notable books Triggerfish and Zero Avenue, is fast becoming one of Canada’s top crime writers. Prior to writing novels, he was

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Litchfield Reviews French Exit by Patrick deWitt

Gentler and more tender than a Patrick deWitt reader might anticipate, French Exit is a skilfully told tale that is brimming with humour and pathos, insightful conversations, and featuring eccentric people that intrigue and entertain. It begins at a party on the Upper East Side with the strikingly attractive, revered, upper-cruster Frances Price indulging in

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