Book Preview TYPICAL COP-OUT This is a work of fiction and it’s set in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and that’s really asking for it. None of the characters are based on real people, living or dead. I’d say that anyway to avoid a libel suit, but it also happens to be true. Not that anyone’s likely … Read more
Book Preview This one’s for all the people who’ve come up to me over the past ten years to ask me if I was ever going to write another book about Bernie. If half of you buy it, I’ll be rich. It’s also for Sue Grafton, a very classy lady indeed. And for Steve King, … Read more
Book Preview CHAPTER One At a quarter after ten on the last Wednesday in May, I put a beautiful woman in a taxi and watched her ride out of my life, or at least out of my neighborhood. Then I stepped off the curb and flagged a cab of my own. Seventy-first and West End, … Read more
Book Preview CHAPTER One Around five-thirty I put down the book I’d been reading and started shooing customers out of the store. The book was by Robert B. Parker, and its hero was a private detective named Spenser who compensated for his lack of a first name by being terribly physical. Every couple of chapters … Read more
Book Preview Chapter One It was a slow day at Barnegat Books, but then most of them are. Antiquarian booksellers, after all, do not dream of retiring to the slow and simple life. They are already leading it. This particular day had two high points, and as luck would have it they both came at … Read more
Book Preview When from ’ouse to ’ouse you’re ’untin’ you must always work in pairs— It ’alves the gain, but safer you will find— For a single man gets bottled on them twisty-wisty stairs. An’ a woman comes and clobs ’im from be’ind. When you’ve turned ’em inside out, an’ it seems beyond a doubt … Read more
Book Preview Contents Author’s Note Chapters One The man,” said my friend Marty Gilmartin, “is an absolute… Two A wall safe,” Carolyn Kaiser said. “He was straightening the… Three I went back to the bookstore and opened up, and… Four I didn’t really have to go home first. I was… Five Turning around and walking … Read more
Book Preview CHAPTER One The lobby was a bit the worse for wear. The large oriental carpet had seen better days, lots of them. The facing Lawson sofas sagged invitingly and, like the rest of the furniture, showed the effects of long use. They were in use now; two women sat in animated conversation, and, … Read more
Book Preview CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE At three in the afternoon on the first Thursday in… CHAPTER TWO I should start at the beginning. CHAPTER THREE That was Tuesday night. The following day Carolyn bought the… CHAPTER FOUR Chandler never mentioned a second meeting, I told Carolyn, and… CHAPTER FIVE We had a short wait on … Read more
Book Preview CHAPTER One “Gramercy Park,” said Miss Henrietta Tyler, “is an oasis in the middle of a cruel sea, a respite from the slings and arrows of which the Bard has warned us.” A sigh escaped her lips, the sort of sigh that follows upon the contemplation of an oasis in the middle of … Read more
Book Preview Chapter One A handful of minutes after nine I hoisted my Bloomingdale’s shopping bag and moved out of a doorway and into step with a tall blond fellow with a faintly equine cast to his face. He was carrying an attaché case that looked too thin to be of much use. Like a … Read more
Book Preview 1 I CAME UP OUT OF IT VERY SLOWLY. AT FIRST THERE WAS ONLY the simple awareness of existence. I was lying on my right side, my right arm bent oddly so that my head rested upon my wrist There was a slight tingling sensation in the fingers of my right hand, as … Read more