Lythway Large Print Books
7 total works
All over town, phones were ringing. Shopkeepers and merchants were being threatened by anonymous cranks. And the threats were getting more and more serious. When the angry victims started yelling to the local cops for help, Steve Carella and the boys of the 87th Precinct didn't know what to make of the whole thing. Were they facing a plague of harmless pranksters - or the danger of a city-wide wave of violence? All they had to go on were the constant attention of "the deaf man" and the knowledge that if they didn't catch their cold-blooded callers before the end of the month, the prophecies of murder and mayhem might prove all too true.
Two a.m. in the bitter cold of winter: the young Hispanic man's body is found in a tenement basement. The rope around his neck suggests a clear case of suicide - until the autopsy reveals he'd overdosed on heroin. He was a pusher, and now a thousand questions press down on the detectives of the 87th Precinct. Who set up the phony hanging? Whose fingerprints were on the syringe found at the scene? Who was making threatening phone calls, attempting to implicate Lieutenant Byrnes' teenage son? Somebody is pushing the 87th Precinct hard, and Detective Steve Carella and Lieutenant Pete Byrnes have to push back harder - before a frightening and deadly chain tightens its trip.
A trickster taking money from an old woman for his own private charity. A cheater fleecing the businessmen of their thousands with the oldest gimmick in town. A lady-killer after the ladies' dollars with just a little bit of love...The guys of the 87th Precinct thought they knew every trick in the book - so why are there bodies still washing up on the shore? The Con Man: handsome, charming - and deadly.
Sy Kramer was handsome, well-dressed, well-heeled - and dead. A blackmailer who'd pushed one of his victims too far, Kramer had earned his last payoff: a bullet in the head. Which of Kramer's pigeons had so much at stake that murder seemed like the best bet? Was it the politician's wife, anxious to conceal her shadowy past? Or the soft drinks king? Or was it that unknown victim who had fattened Kramer's bankroll by the thousands? Or perhaps another blackmailer muscling in on Kramer's territory? The boys of the 87th have a tough case to crack. They must catch the desperate killer before he or she strikes again, and Kramer's blackmail victims are decidedly unwilling to cooperate.
The heroes of the city's streets are becoming the hunted. When Detective Reardon is found dead, motive is a big question mark. But when his partner becomes victim number two, it looks like open-and-shut grudge killings. That is, until a third detective is killed. Swift, silent and deadly, someone is picking off the 87th Precinct's finest, one by one. The how of the killings is obvious: three .45 shots from the dark add up to three very dead detectives. The why and the who are the Precinct's big headaches now. With one meagre clue, Detective Steve Carella begins his grim search for the killer, a search that takes him into the city's underworld to a notorious brothel, to the apartment of a beautiful and dangerous widow, and finally to a .45 automatic aimed straight at his head ...
Wealthy Douglas King has received a ransom demand. But it isn't his own son who has been kidnapped, it's his chauffeur's. If he pays up, it could ruin the biggest deal he ever made in his life, and throw away his future. But is the alternative to sacrifice a child's life? Detective Steve Carella and the rest of the 87th Precinct can only keep trying to nab the kidnappers and hope that Doug King decides to give them the payoff. But if King doesn't play ball, they'll have a cold-blooded murder on their hands ...