Black Curtain Press

It was a few minutes before eleven when I unlocked our door. The dumb lamp we had in the two-by-four "foyer" was on. The lamp looked like a drippy flower and cost fifty-seven bucks strictly because...

Learn, too the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile, or what really happened to Ambrose Bierce. And ponder, if you can, the case of Simple Simon, who lost the only important thing he had-and never even...

An affluent woman boards a taxi-cab on a dreary night in the big city. After a harsh drive through sleet, they arrive at her destination. The cab looks back from the weather to discover the woman...

Something illusory, without substance or reality. The sticky threads that communicate the meaningless in a thousand different ways. Collected here are 17 tales of darkness and dread, teetering on the...

Originally banned in the UK, this is the story of Miss Callaghan. Not of any particular Miss Callaghan, but of the hundreds of Miss Callaghans who disappear from their homes suddenly and mysteriously...

12 exciting stories featuring the famous Chinese master sleuth, James Lee Wong! LONG CHANCE TEN BELLS A RAY OF LIGHT THE BELL FROM CHINA THE FEAST OF KALI JAYBIRD'S CHANCE NO WITNESSES THREE WORDS...

The Golden Spoon was strictly for suckers. Located a block north of the river in a renovated three-story building, it sported a white-and-red striped canopy which stretched from plate-glass door to...

There were three witnesses to swear that only Gregory Drake could have been in the back room with Maysie Grey when she was strangled to death. Even Randolph Lee, Drake's defense counsel, thought that...

The rock was about the size of a man's head. A beautiful rock, about twenty pounds of it, and somehow I had to get over to it. The minute I saw it I knew that rock was just the thing I needed. This...

NICHOLAS NICKLEBY by Charles Dickens Containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings and Complete Career of the Nickleby Family Our hero Nickleby confronts a large...

They Gave Him Back His Badge, and Sent Him Down Into the Brutal Throbbing Heart of the Slums. Crooked ex-cop Corey Bradford turns out to be an ideal candidate for an underground police unit known as...

He could remember the gun in his hand, the man in front of him, the shock of the explosion, and then the blood. He could remember the flight though the woods, and the satchel with the money, and now...

Laurel Dane was no angel. She'd changed men as often as she'd changed her hair color, and there was plenty in her past she'd like to forget. But no one deserved to be beaten to death, and private eye...

When Dave Fenner was hired to solve the Blandish kidnapping, he knew the on finding the girl were against him-the cops were still looking for her three months after the ransom had been paid. And the...

Grant Harrington is a man forced to kill a teenager by the name of Lecy Newsted. Gaining the confidence of Lecy's sister Cora, Grant thinks he may have figured out a plan... But Lecy Newsted is not...

Welcome to the roller-coaster world of professional con men-and the one wild beauty who can out-swindle and outwit them all. Utterly beautiful, smart as a whip, here is the most fascinating...

Doan, a chubby private eye with a fondness for weak women and strong drink, and Carstairs, his enormous Great Dane sidekick, have been hired by 54-year-old but still glamorous beauty maven Heloise of...

Originally published in 1899, Pharos, the Egyptian is a thriller with romance and supernaturalism. A very sinister old man, Pharos, proves to be Ptahmes, a mummy who has survived through the...

He pulled her close to him and kissed her gently. "I don't think so," he said. It was no longer important that Erica had been Ivan's mistress. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted any woman...

A MAN WITH A CRAVING HE COULD NEITHER ACCEPT OR DESTROY! Jeff Stoner was a cop who kept the law during the day. But the night drove him into whiskey-drenched rooms and the arms of a redhead -any...

Buried deep in the reaches of vast antiquity lie the ancient customs, the vicious "games," the laws of the privileged lord and his enslaved minions. Sarban's preoccupation with the remote brooding...

If you're Toussaint Moore, a private investigator from New York City, and a Negro, framed in your own city for a white man's murder, you are going to find it tricky sledding in a small Ohio town,...

Doan, a chubby, wisecracking private eye, and Carstairs, a Great Dane so huge he ought to be considered a new species, follow a trail of mayhem and confusion from Hollywood to the Mojave Desert town...

Maurice Coons, writing under the pseudonym Armitage Trail, gathered the elements for 'Scarface' when living in Chicago, where he became acquainted with many local Sicilian gangs. He prowled the murky...

Murder multiplied by SEVEN! Supercharged action and breath-taking suspense in this carnival of crime from the blood-dripped pen of Paul Cain, a connoisseur of crime who writes in the best homicidal...

Once a happy family man, Kealan now spends his days walking aimlessly and crashing in his friend's spare room. It never seems to matter how much he walks, because his shadow is always there. When he...

A Johnny Killain Novel The mob got the word when Killain hit town-lock up your women and load your guns! Carl Thompson reached in a pocket with his free hand and tossed a glittering object across the...

She traded hope of heaven for a paradise on earth. She was a sprite, a witch, a perpetual temptation to every man, a soul searing torment to herself, and rough was the road she traveled. First...

Clayton Biner had it all-swimming pools in California, haciendas in Mexico, blue evenings on the French Riviera, all the women he could use. But he wanted more. And he got it when he became involved...

Originally published in 1952. An open and shut case of murder! Matt Ranzino had sworn off sleuthing; he'd had a bellyful of violence. But when a beautiful blonde was murdered and Matt was asked to...