Clark Howard

Just back from World War I, Sam Sheridan is a bit bewildered by his cool reception in the dusty town of Dane, Tex., when he arrives with his pregnant wife, Georgia, a beat-up car and a letter informing him that a man he never met has left him 100 acres of land.

Sixteen-year-old Patricia Columbo began working for pharmacist Frank DeLuca, a married father of five, in the 1970s, and the two soon entered into a sexual relationship. Against her father's wishes, Patricia and Frank moved in together. Then, in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, Patricia's father was brutally murdered, along with her mother and thirteen-year-old brother. Police were suspicious of Patricia's strange behavior after the bodies were discovered,...

Lee Madrigal became a doctor in spite of his difficult working-class upbringing, with a mother who died young and a father who fell under the spell of alcohol. Now Lee serves his neighbors in the California community where he grew up, and has reunited with his high school sweetheart. But the medical cases he's been handling lately have been bothering him: a baby born with inexplicable birth defects; a young man with symptoms that seem to mimic a venereal...

As the Vietnam War rages, blood will be shed at a stateside Marine Corps prison, in this novel. Siberia 10 is a military prison in California, and tensions are coming to a slow boil within its walls. Inmates are trying to escape; guards are practicing constant brutality; racial tensions are seething. Those confined to Siberia 10 have been trained to fight and kill-and in the midst of chaos, things could turn lethal. Into this tinderbox comes Garth...

A collection of short fiction, including an Edgar Award–nominated story, about hard-luck characters and the human instinct to survive. A survivor of Little Bighorn faces down the resulting trauma in the decades following the bloody battle. An old man who has lost his late wife's cat joins forces with an unlikely partner to rescue abused animals. An ex–racecar driver contends with criminals in the midst of the famous Dakar Rally. Challenge...

A team of professional stunt performers are likely to lose their livelihoods as a new law goes into effect, severely limiting their ability to take the risks that have made them who they are. In the meantime, they have a plan to mark a spectacular end to their careers-and possibly their lives-in this action-packed thriller by an Edgar Award—winning author.

When a topless dancer is beaten to death, police detective Joe Kiley strongly suspects her boyfriend, a mob kingpin's brother, is the killer. He isn't-but in the course of trying to track him down, Kiley's partner winds up dead during an unauthorized stakeout. Now Kiley wants vengeance-if not for the dancer, then for his longtime fellow cop. Despite warnings from the department, he's about to be drawn deep into the world of gangs and organized crime,...

He was known as Cully the Arm-the best crapshooter in Chicago. Life was a game of both skill and luck, and he'd made his way to the big city seeking his chance to be a winner. Before long he was moving between bars, backrooms, brothels-anywhere a man could gamble. Then he met a seductive woman named Lorry, who was playing a game of her own, and she wasn't about to let any rules get in her way ... The inspiration for the film The Big Town, The Arm...

A pair of twins have been brutally murdered, and Los Angeles detectives George Cascade and Ed Fenner find themselves working a case with puzzling sexual overtones. When a young, intellectually disabled African American becomes the object of suspicion, tensions flare between the two officers—and it will push them to the edge before the truth can be sorted out.

A hit man tries to make a clean break from his murderous career in this chilling novel from an award-winning author. He has no police record, not even a traffic ticket. But he's killed twenty-seven people during his career as a professional assassin. And sometimes it's not just the target who takes a bullet-if the bodyguard or mistress is unfortunate enough to be around. When the time comes, it happens fast: assemble the weapon, load, ditch the evidence. Now...