You've happened upon three taut tales of tension, mayhem, double-dealing, and dark deeds, all penned by a master craftsman who rarely writes about someplace he hasn't been, or something he hasn't done.
In this trilogy's opening tale, Dead Drop, private detective and often seasick SCUBA diver J.D. Harris heads down to the beautiful Caribbean islands, hoping to find his missing partner, and instead discovers a diabolical trap and the kind of femme fatale who can give a man sweat-soaked nightmares. In The Other End of Newbury Street, Hartov takes us back to Boston in the early 1970s, where a barely surviving gumshoe and screwup named Arthur Friedland can't seem to get even one thing right. And at last, with Pocket Litter, Hartov brings us back into his own past world of spies and terrorists, and a nail-biting rendezvous where an intelligence officer is about to get himself killed because of one small slip.
These are the kinds of stories that hard-drinking writers used to pen about rough men and women, written by a pro who's inherited the mantles of Mickey Spillane and Len Deighton. Pour yourself a tumbler of whiskey, light up a smoke, and hold onto your hats and guns.
From New York Times bestselling author STEVEN HARTOV (The Last of the Seven, The Soul of a Thief, and In the Company of Heroes) comes this collection of climactic short stories which embody the essence of noir, skillfully crafted for the modern reader.
"The ghosts of Raymond Chandler, James M. Caine and Horace McCoy are at a bar lamenting the end of the American short story. In comes Papa Hemingway with a copy of Ménage à Noir. 'Thank God we still have Steven Hartov,' he says. They all clink glasses."
- Jerome Preisler, New York Times bestselling author
