Prologue Books imprint: 453 books

''The gallows in my garden, people say, Is new and neat and adequately tall. I tie the noose on in a knowing way As one that knots his necktie for a ball; But just as all the neighbors . . . on the wail . . . Are drawing a long breath to shout 'Hurray!' The strangest whim has seized me . . . After...

This one was for keeps. It started the night private eye Ed Rivers went to the rescue of a damsel in distress and almost ended up at the bottom of Tampa Bay. Ed knew who was lurking behind him. His name was Russ Leppert. Russ liked to kill people. Not for any real reason - just because...

Three people were dead, their heads bashed in, their bodies hacked with a samurai sword. All three victims were Japanese. The murder weapon was traced to Nick Martin, a veteran of Iwo Jima. Nick had spent fifteen pain-ridden years in and out of Army hospitals. He tried to drown his memories of the...

On the day they gave the money away . . . the shopping center was a scene of confusion. A carnival had been set up nearby, and now a clown was throwing coins and bills to the eager crowd. Suddenly the gay scene changed to nightmare. A man clutched his stomach and dropped to the ground. A clown...

Velda toyed with men. Sometimes she gave them what they wanted - sometimes not. But her games were somewhat limited by her marriage. For every time her husband found out about one of her flings, there were jealous rages. If he got mad enough, no allowance that week. Velda was, in fact, becoming...

Betty Case opened her eyes, fear gripping her. She lay very still for a moment, listening. Then she heard the sound again, like someone walking on the roof. Instantly she thought of the cat burglar, who’d been terrorizing his victims with an axe. She sat up and reached for the gun under her...

Jud Sands lived on the edge of the law. When he blew into Ridgeford he had exactly twenty-four dollars in his pocket - it had cost a lot of money just to stay alive after he’d been fingered by Big Mark Fallon . . . But he had his gun. He had his wits. And there was nowhere else...

Manny Moon, the agile one-legged detective, is back on a case involving the son of his old friend Ed Brighton. Young Joe Brighton had been found by the police standing over the dead body of Bart Meyers, president of the Purple Pelicans - a juvenile gang to which Joe belonged. The knife used...

It was just Manny Moon's luck - or misfortune - that he decided to dine at El Patio the evening the Lieutenant Governor was shot.

If someone had told Gamble Clancy Ross that a stenographer—just out of secretarial school, at that—could start a gang war, he would have grinned and suggested an immediate sojourn in a mental institution for the prognosticator. Even if that same someone had described the chick in question—blond,...

One surprise deserves another. “Think you’ll need any help, Sergeant?” Lieutenant Wynn asked Matt Rudd. “I don’t think so, sir,” Rudd said. “Kuzniki is a dangerous, but he doesn’t know I’m here.” “O.K.,” Wynn said. “I’m going to lunch.” With...

It’s coming . . . the pleasure state! In this biting and satiric novel, a major American writer looks forward to the day - surely not far away - when machines have taken over all productive work, the government consists of a battery of Thinking Machines, and the people are turned loose on...

The Dark Stain is a novel of tremendous force and vitality. It is a story of lust and hatred and passion . . . nakedly portrayed and in words the meaning of which can escape no one. The locale is Harlem, but what happens in its exciting pages has already been paralleled in many American cities and...

*“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly. “’Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy; The way into my parlour is up a winding stair, And I have many curious things to show when you are there.” “Oh, no,” said the little Fly,...