Loren D. Estleman

"1946. Fresh from the War in Europe, hack writer Jacob Heppleman discovers a changed world back home. The pulp magazines he used to write for are dying, replaced by a revolutionary new publishing racket: paperback novels. Although scorned by the critics, the tawdry drugstore novels sell like hotcakes - or so Jacob is assured. As "Jack Holly," Jacob finds success as the author of crime novels. He prides himself on the authenticity of his work, which...

The search for a fugitive embezzler leads Amos Walker to Cleveland, where he is hired by Emmett Yale, a leading figure in the electric car industry, to investigate the murder of his stepson. Yale believes that his stepson's hitman is connected to Clare Strickling, a former employee, and his attempts to silence whispers that he has bought illegal insider-trading information. Walker shadows Strickling to a private airfield as he attempts to flee the...

Trying to go straight, former contract killer Peter Macklin carries out a hit in the Lone Star state, in this page-turning hard-boiled thriller   Johns Davis has just left the Alamo when he feels the garrote wrap around his neck. The bookie slams his foot on the gas, sending the car into oncoming traffic. It bounces off a van, hops the curb, and crashes into a hotel, knocking Davis unconscious and breaking the neck of his would-be assassin. Davis...

Hollywood, 1913: In the dusty desert community of Los Angeles, a ragtag film company cranks out silent movies in defiance of the law. Young Dmitri Pulski works for his father's ice company in the snowy Sierra Nevadas, and is sent on a journey south to investigate an astonishing order for ten tons of ice by something called the Rocky Mountain Moving Picture Association. Almost immediately, Dmitri, an aspiring writer, finds himself writing movie scenarios. But...

The undertaker's wife waits; she weaves; she builds. The undertaker practices his art, the Dismal Trade, with consummate skill. He has raised it to an art through the high craft of the Connable Method. Through it, he has managed to transform the ugliness of death into a thing of dignity and beauty. Victims brutalized by war, street fights, tavern brawls, ambushes, fires, and every hazard in a raw West, these, in his hands, become presentable. Everywhere...

Hit man Peter Macklin battles divorce attorneys, mobsters, and hired assassins in this action-packed, hard-boiled thriller   For years, Donna ignored the guns in her husband's safe, his long hours, and all the cash he couldn't possibly have made as an "efficiency expert." But finally she was forced to admit that Peter Macklin is a killer for hire. Donna wants a divorce, and she wants to take her husband for all he's worth. But she won't get a penny...

Dead Man's Hand No one paid any mind to Jack McCall as he unloaded a .44 caliber slug into Wild Bill Hickok's brain at point-blank range. Deadwood's legendary gunslinging marshal was dead, holding a poker hand of aces and eights, a dead man's hand. The question the law wanted to know: was McCall a hired killer or did he kill Hickok to avenge his brother's death? Find out in Loren D. Estleman's Aces & Eights.

A Detroit mob war draws Peter Macklin back into his old life as a Mafia assassin in award-winning author Loren D. Estleman's riveting hard-boiled thriller   The Reverend Thomas Aquinas Sunsmith is halfway through his sermon when killers open fire. He is preaching against the evils of gambling, which a cartel of mobsters is trying to legalize in Detroit. The hail of gunfire misses the reverend, but a choir member is cut down-the first victim in the...

"Vamp is a hot new Valentino mystery by Loren D. Estleman, the master of the hard-boiled detective novel and recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award. Renowned film detective Valentino is on a quest to help restore The Comet, an extinct drive-in movie theater, and his trail leads him to Leo Kalishnikov, who requests a favor first - rid him of a blackmailer from his shady past, and he'll gladly hand over the money...

In Loren D. Estelman's Murdock's Law, Special U.S. Deputy Page Murdock rides into Breen, Montana, on the trail of a menacing and elusive outlaw. But, before he can scout the saloons for his man, he is made town marshal in a territory heating up for the ugliest range war this side of hell. The big ranchers want a gunslinger marshal, and the small ranchers have their own hired gun. But, the badge on Murdock's chest means law, and he'll enforce it the...