What's Bernie Rhodenbarr doing in the country? He is a New York kind of guy, an urbane antiquarian bookseller who moonlights as a buttoned down burglar. Until an impossibly rare Raymond Chandler novel dedicated to Dashiell Hammett lures him and his buddy, Carolyn, from their own turf to the hills of Western Massachusetts. Before they knows it, they're smack in the middle of Agatha Christie country and you know what that means. A classic English country house. A guest list awash in eccentricity. And the snow keeps falling. And the bridge is out. And the phone lines are cut. And, one by one, somebody's killing off the guests. And....shhhh! There's a burglar in the library!

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An angry and mercilessly suspenseful novel about an ex-con's attempt to negotiate the "straight world" and his swan dive back into the paradoxical security of crime. Airtight in its construction, it is almost photorealistic in its portrayal of LA lowlife and utterly knowledgeable about the terrors of liberty, the high of the quick score and the rage that makes the finger tighten on the trigger of the gun.

"The best first-person crime novel I have ever read" - Quentin Tarantino
"A gripping and harrowing read" - Daily Mail

The ninth Dave Brandstettey mystery

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Dan Woodrell comes from a long line of Ozarkers that stretch back before the Civil War. A high school dropout he joined the marine corps at 17.The military and he saw things differently. A period of post military drifting ended up at the University of Kansas and a Michener fellowship at the Iowa Writers School, where he was definitely the odd man out. His first novel, Under the Bright Lights, used the noir form and bought him high praise and recognition from fellow writers. He has also written two noir novels featuring the Shade family, Muscle for the Wing and The Ones You Do, the civil war novel, Woe To Live On, Tomato Red and the country noir, Give Us A Kiss. He lives in West Plains, Missouri with his wife, the writer, Katie Estill.