“The Baby Doll Murders” [excerpt] by James O. Causey

Tierney’s room was three blocks off Fremont, on a quiet side street. He paid twenty a week for the converted bachelor apartment which consisted of one small bedroom and bathroom. In the bottom bureau drawer, hidden between two undershirts, was a hundred and eighty dollars. My stake, Tierney thought sardonically, putting the money into his […]

“Down Solo” [excerpt] by Earl Javorsky

Charlie Miner wakes up looking down at his body on a gurney at the LA County morgue. When he moves closer to the body, it pulls him in and he is able to make it get up and walk around. Charlie, a down-on-his-luck, heroin-addicted insurance fraud investigator, leaves the morgue with two priorities: to get […]

Excerpts from “Hostage for a Hood” and “The Merriweather File” by Lionel White

Lionel White wrote such clever and realistic crime novels that when a petty crook in France read one of his books, he used it as a blueprint for his own crime. It seemed clever to him, and foolproof, although a series of coincidences and flaws in human character made the scheme fail in the book. […]