This funny, rich, raunchy autobiography re-creates the adventures of a very young soldier in the US Army at the height of the Depression. Charles Willeford was 16 in 1935 when he signed up and was sent to the Philippines. And the Philippines of those days was like a place out of another century. Willeford’s job was to fuel aircraft whose pilots treated him and his buddies almost like slaves. At night, however, he was a lord, fully exploring a great, timeless, and sensual city with a multitude of women available - even on a private’s pay.

The unblinking story of two lost and self-destructive drifters - a failed painter working as a counterman in a cheap diner and a woman in flight from domestic violence - trying to find a place for themselves in the back streets of San Francisco, Pick-Up is hardboiled writing at its nihilistic best.

A former professional boxer, actor, horse trainer and radio announcer, Charles Willeford is best known for his Miami-based crime novels featuring hard-boiled detective Hoke Moseley, including Miami Blues and Sideswipe. Of Cockfighter, Harry Crews said, “Charles Willeford renders the sport with such knowledge and attention to detail that...had the almost inexpressible impression of being on my knees again beside the great fighting pits of the southern circuit.

In this classic Miami crime story and thriller, from the writer acclaimed for his Hoke Moseley novels, a man's life is threatened when he discovers his new lover is married.

Charles Willeford was a man of letters in all senses of the word. Poet, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and raconteur, his early paperback novels with their existential/immobilized heroes were the creations (to paraphrase Chandler) of a man not himself immobilized - a man who, instead, with his trademark black-humored prose, doggedly examined the mind-thrumming banalities of our materially sated but intellectually befuddled postwar world, crafting a body of work that is only now, 50-some years after his first appearance in print, beginning to be widely appreciated.

Fast-talking, backstabbing, womanizing, and fiercely ambitious art critic James Figueras will do anything - blackmail, burglary, and beyond - to make a name for himself. When an unscrupulous collector offers Figueras a career-making chance to interview Jacques Debierue, the greatest living - and most reclusive - artist, the critic must decide how far he will go to become the art-world celebrity he hungers to be. Will Figueras stop at the opportunity to skim some cream for himself or push beyond morality's limits to a bigger payoff?

After a brutal day investigating a quadruple homicide, Detective Hoke Moseley settles into his room at the un-illustrious Eldorado Hotel and nurses a glass of brandy. With his guard down, he doesn't think twice when he hears a knock on the door. The next day, he finds himself in the hospital, badly bruised and with his jaw wired shut. He thinks back over 10 years of cases, wondering who would want to beat him into unconsciousness, steal his gun and badge, and most importantly, make off with his prized dentures.

The Last Action Heroes opens in May 1990 in Cannes, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone waltzing together, cheered on by a crowd of famous faces. After years of bitter combat, the world’s biggest action stars have at last made peace. In this wildly entertaining account of the golden age of the action movie, Nick de Semlyen charts Stallone and Schwarzenegger’s carnage-packed journey from enmity to friendship against the backdrop of Reagan’s America and the Cold War.

Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson ( Pulp Fiction, Star Wars films), fresh off the success of his uproarious, Audie-nominated performance of the mock children’s book Go the F**k to Sleep, delivers a swaggering, darkly-humored rendering of Chester Himes’ classic first novel.

The mob couldn’t kill him, the cops couldn’t catch him, and even time wouldn’t slow him down. His name’s Nolan...a shrewd, restless tough guy with a talent for theft. With a lifetime of heists under his belt and a bullet in his side, he’s ready to retire. And the Mafia’s eager to help him along...permanently. They think he’s got a debt to pay - with his life. But at all these years, they might be willing to settle for 100 grand instead. Nolan’s got to pull a bank job to try to save his ass.

If it’s navel-gazing you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong place; ditto treacly self-examination. Rather, his observations turn outward: a fight between two men on a bus, a fight between two men on the street, pedestrians being whacked over the head or gathering to watch as a man considers leap­ing to his death. There’s a dirty joke shared at a book signing, then a dirtier one told at a dinner party - lots of jokes here. Plenty of laughs.

The creator of Deadwood and NYPD Blue reflects on his tumultuous life, driven by a nearly insatiable creative energy and a matching penchant for self-destruction. Life’s Work is a profound memoir from a brilliant mind taking stock as Alzheimer’s loosens his hold on his own past.

For seventeen years, small-town public defender Andy Hughes has been underpaid to look after the poor, the addicted, and the unfortunate souls who constantly cycle through the courts, charged with petty crimes. Then, in the summer of 2020, he’s assigned to a grotesque murder case that brings national media focus to rural Patrick County, Virginia—Alicia Benson, the wife of a wealthy businessman, is murdered in her home. The accused killer, Damian Bullins, is a cunning felon with a long history of violence, and he confesses to the police.

A dying millionaire hires private eye Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, and Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.

Frank "Dolly" Dillon has a job he hates, working sales and collections for Pay-E-Zee Stores; a wife named Joyce he can't stand; and an account balance that barely allows him to pay the bills each month. Working door-to-door one day, trying to eke money out of folk with even less of it than he has, Dolly crosses paths with a beautiful young woman named Mona Farrell. Mona's being forced by her aunt to do things she doesn't like, with men she doesn't know - she wants out, any way she can get it.