To recover an African artifact, St. Ives will trade $250,000—or his lifePhilip St. Ives is the kind of man who can convince a vice cop and a paroled mobster to sit down to a hand of poker. Once he was a reporter with a daily column, a fat Rolodex, and a reputation for indifference to criminal behavior. Now he is a go-between, a professional mediator between thieves and the people they rip off. For arranging the recovery of a stolen necklace, painting, or child, St....

A cop is car-bombed in Texas—and her brother comes from Capitol Hill to investigate—in this Edgar Award winner by "one of the best storytellers around" ( The New York Times Book Review).A long-distance call from his small Texas hometown on his birthday gives Benjamin Dill the news that his sister Felicity—born on the same day exactly ten years later—has died in a car bomb explosion. She was a homicide detective who had perhaps made one enemy too many over t...

"Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?" -- Mark TwainWhen Lucifer Dye is released from three months in a Hong Kong prison, debriefed, handed a false passport, a new wardrobe and a $20,000 check, his haughty control makes it clear that Dye's career with his country has been permanently terminated. But a good agent is always in demand, and just a few hours later Dye is being interviewed for a highly ingenious position....

Ah, Treachery!, the last novel Thomas wrote before his death, tells the story of one Captain Edd "Twodees" Partain, drummed out of the Army and hounded by rumors of his involvement in a secret operation in El Salvador. Twodees gets hired on to help a fundraiser for the "Little Rock folks" recover funds that were stolen from an illicit stash used to smooth over problems and pay off hush money. Meanwhile, Partain is involved in a storefront operation called VOMIT (Victims of Militar...

Would you be wary if someone gave you the assignment of delivering five million dollars to a Philippine terrorist--never mind from whom or why? Booth Stallings, a terrorism expert just fired from his job at a bashful organization that never admitted its mount in the Washington merry-go-round, is wary. So wary that he cuts in con man "Otherguy" Overby, who in turn involves Artie Wu, pretender to the throne of China, and his partner, Quincy Durant. Obviously, good patriots don't want to hand...

The Edgar Award–winning debut novel from "America's best storyteller" about a man drawn into espionage by his mysterious business partner ( The New York Times Book Review ).At the height of the Cold War, two Americans are runnng a bar in the West German capital, called Mac's place. One of the pair, Michael Padillo, isn't around a lot; he keeps disappearing on "business trips." McCorkle, his partner, wisely doesn't ask ques...

With eviction looming, St. Ives searches for a big payday and a rare bookPhilip St. Ives has no love for New York’s drafty, broken-down Adelphi Hotel, but he is in no mood to be evicted from it. His cash dwindling, he is happy to learn about a job that calls for his specific talents as a mediator between thieves and their victims. It sounds like the set-up to a bad joke: A thief, an insurance salesman, and the Library of Congress call Philip’s lawyer to ask about a...

An "entertaining" noir thriller about a disgraced judge forced into hiding after being released from prison "can be pleasantly devoured in one sitting" ( Los Angeles Times ).The Fourth Durango is not your ordinary Durango. It's not in Spain, or Mexico, and it's not a ski town in the Colorado Rockies, although Durangos do exist in all of those places. This Durango is a hideout business, a place where people pay to find sanc...

An old-school Southerner is recruited to run a political campaign in a dangerous African electionClinton Shartelle doesn’t seem like a good choice to run a political campaign in Albertia. For one thing, he’s American, and Albertia is a small coastal republic in Africa, about to be cut loose from the English Crown. For another, Shartelle is Southern and fiercely proud of it, and his ideas about racial politics veer unpredictably from progressive to rigidly old-fashi...

Saloon owner Mac McCorkle and former CIA agent Mike Padillo team up to help a pair of bodyguards being pursued by assassins—who soon add McCorkle and Padillo to their hit list.

Between the cutthroat worlds of organized crime and Washington power brokers, two hard-nosed bosses scrap for control of America’s largest union.

A freelance fixer comes out of retirement to rescue the President’s kidnapped brotherAmerican agents abduct a high-profile terrorist in broad daylight on the streets of London, subduing him with a tranquilizer. He dies a few hours later on a flight back to Washington, DC, and the body is dropped into the ocean.Hours later, the President’s brother—a political powerhouse in his own right—boards a plane to Las Vegas that doesn’t land in Nevada. Libyan radicals...