New in stores this month is the latest Quarry novel by Max Allan Collins, KILLING QUARRY, and it’s gotten the best early reviews any book in the series has gotten in a decade. Mystery Scene called it “vintage Collins, hard-hitting, heavy on the action, and utterly unsentimental.” Publishers Weekly writes, “Newcomers and established fans alike will be happily drawn into Quarry’s cold-blooded criminal world.” Booklist called it a “pulpy pleasure trip” and “a thoroughly entertaining pas de deux, evoking Richard Condon’s classic Prizzi’s Honor.” May we humbly suggest you not let this one pass you by…?

While we’re at it, don’t miss BLOOD SUGAR by Daniel Kraus, co-creator with Guillermo del Toro of the Academy Award-winning Best Picture The Shape of Water. It’s a crime novel about a recluse who enlists three kids to help him with a horrifying scheme, but will they follow through or come to their senses in time? It’s a beautiful, funny, touching, weird, wild novel and one of the most memorable we’ve read in ages. Don’t let the Halloween-themed cover make you think it’s only worth reading in October!

Coming in 2020, we’ve got the debut novel of legendary filmmaker Brian de Palma (Scarface, The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible), teaming up with former New York Times editor Susan Lehman — it’s called ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? and as fellow cinematic titan Martin Scorsese says on the front cover, “It’s like having a new Brian de Palma picture.” 

And then Erle Stanley Gardner’s detective team of Cool & Lam returns in SHILLS CAN’T CASH CHIPS, a delicious (and long-unavailable!) peek back into the fast and furious world of car crashes, insurance scams, and murder in the 1960s.

For fans of graphic novels, we’ve begun the project of reissuing the complete collected MS. TREE — the longest-running detective comic in history! — and Volume 1 is out now. And esteemed Japanese artist Eldo Yoshimizu joins Hard Case Crime with the Tarantino-esque yakuza story RYUKO.

Still not enough? Well, 2020 will also bring you a treat from the late Donald E. Westlake and the return, for his first new adventure in more than 30 years, of…oh, we can’t bring ourselves to tell you just yet! But it’s a character we are SO excited to see in action again. Here’s a little taste for you to savor and puzzle over: