You say you’re a fan of detective novels but you haven’t discovered Richard Prather’s Shell Scott?  Hmmm, I don’t know about you…

But you can atone for your sin by picking up just about any of the nearly forty novels and story collections penned by the late great Prather and joining his humorous private eye on another whacked-out caper, inevitably populated by plug-ugly goons and scantily clad ladies in jeopardy. Shell is an endearing, self-satirizing hero who is as likely to nail the bad guys by bumbling as by brilliant detection and bravado.

I was one of millions who feasted on Shell Scotts like popcorn and now I’m happy to introduce them to you.  For light summer reading there just is nothing better.

The books aren’t in any particular sequence, so you can start anywhere, but what the heck, start with A, Always Leave ‘Em Dying, and work your way down to W, Way of a Wanton.

Richard Curtis

You don’t associate Ray Garton with detective fiction, but you’re in for a special treat: Garton out-Spillanes Mickey Spillane with this gutty private eye novel with an irresistibly intriguing title, Murder Was My Alibi

“She walked into my office smelling like a meadow of flowers and looking like one long night of trouble.”

Myron Foote is a private detective on the wrong side of the tracks who doesn’t like to be on the receiving end of violence but is sometimes a little too quick to hand it out to others. From his dumpy little office on the edge of the red light district, he works bottom-of-the-barrel divorce cases…until a gorgeous redhead walks into his life and offers him $105,000 to pose as her uncle Percy. It sounds simple. Too simple. But who could turn down that kind of money? Or that kind of redhead?

The job takes him down a dark path littered with lies and secrets, blackmail and murder…a path that leads straight into Cynthia Thacketer’s arms…and into a deadly trap. Soon, all that stands between Foote and life in prison is an alibi he cannot use.

Ray Garton keeps the pace brisk and the action intense in this hard-boiled modern noir that will have you guessing until the final gunshot.

Can’t get enough Ray Garton noir?  Visit his author page for a banquet of dark fiction.

Another thriller by Aaron Elkins brings back Nazi atrocities that everyone thought were in the past.  The book is Turncoat.

Pete Simon’s all-American life is everything he ever wanted: a good home, a satisfying career, and a marriage still strong and loving after nearly twenty years. But in the days following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, everything is about to change.

It starts with the appearance of an old man at his door, ranting madly about money, death, and forgiveness. The man is a stranger to Pete–but not to his wife Lily. Only later does the truth come out. The unwelcome visitor was Lily ‘s father, whom she had claimed died during World War II in their native France, executed by the Nazis.

The next day, he truly is dead, his savagely beaten body washed up in a nearby marsh—and Lily disappears, leaving behind only a brief, enigmatic note asking Pete not to look for her.

Now, with a business card from an antiques dealer in Barcelona as his only lead, Pete sets out on a twisted and perilous journey that will carry him to places where the hideous crimes of the Nazis remain fresh in the minds of those who cannot forget…or forgive. But each door Pete opens leads him deeper into a painful and shocking past that threatens everything he holds most dear. And suddenly he has become more than a confused and distraught husband; the bitter truths that he uncovers one by one in the search for Lily now make him—and her—the targets of desperate, dangerous men and their terrifying vengeance.

For a complete list of  Aaron Elkins’ E-Reads books, including his immensely popular Gideon Oliver mystery series,  click here.

The prolific and perpetually inventive Warren Murphy has produced over one hundred novels in the Destroyer series. E-Reads has fifty of them for sale, and more are on the way. But – Murphy produced another series, Trace, built around the exploits of a dissipated insurance investigator. His assignments always seem to involve people who die not long after an insurance policy has been taken out on them. When Devlin Tracy – “Trace” – is not recovering from drink, gambling, or womanizing, there is no one better at his job. The problem is, he’s always doing one, the other or all three.

E-Reads is reprinting all seven thrillers in the Trace series. In the title novel. Trace’s part-time hooker girlfriend is off on an out-of-town trick, but alimony bills are piling up and his assignment is to find out if an idealistic doctor is dedicated to killing his patients instead of curing them.

The other novels in the series are:

And 47 Miles of Rope
Once a Mutt
Pigs Get Fat
Too Old a Cat
Getting Up With Fleas
When Elephants Forget

Pigs Get Fat won a Mystery Writers of America Edgar award for best paperback original of 1985.

If you want to take a day off from Destroyer, pick up a Trace or two, or seven. They’re all in e-book, and very soon will be in paperback.

RC