The best-selling mystery writer Lawrence Block proves his point with the twenty outstanding stories he has chosen for this volume. For fans of the traditional mystery, there’s T. Jefferson Parker’s “Easy Street,” in which a brother’s visit uncovers family secrets. In Jeremiah Healy’s “A Book of Kells,” a detective draws on his Irish heritage to solve a crime. And in Clark Howard’s “Under Suspicion,” a detective’s investigation of the murder of his best friend’s daughter hits too close to home. However, many of the stories are concerned more with the personalities and motives surrounding the crime than with the crime itself. In Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Girl with the Blackened Eye,” we...

You may be disturbed — or possibly titillated — to discover what can happen once you cross the Orange Curtain...

In a city of fast cars and movie stars, these folks are crazy about cacti. Until a killer joins the club . . . Joe Portugal likes people. But he likes plants better. That's why the former theater actor turned small-time L.A. commercial star is a prominent member of the Culver City Cactus Club. Unfortunately, so is a killer. The club's president is dead-a poison succulent lodged into her mouth. With a father who knows a thing or two about murder, and police breathing down his neck, Joe can recognize a jam when he sees one. But when he begins searching through a colorful cast of plant lovers, plant dealers, and even international plant smugglers, he doesn't find the answers he needs....

Joe Portugal's experienced killing before. He's seen gunmen mow down a friend on little more than a whim. He's known greed and ambition to drive his friends to murder. But now he's face to face with a whole new degree of wickedness. A show business prodigy has been shot dead. Though no one -- except perhaps the man's father -- will mourn him, his demise puts Joe in debt to a shadowy presence whose sway extends deep into Southern California industry, government, and law enforcement. And suddenly Joe begins to suspect that everyone he knows -- his protégé, stunning television star Ronnie Bell; his new wife, Gina; and most disturbing of all, his prison vet father -- is part of that clandestine...

Nature. Nurture. Murder. L.A. actor Joe Portugal just wants to keep the mealybugs off his cacti, give a little boost to his love life, and maybe make a few commercials along the way. And with a small acting role nailed down, Joe has every reason to mind his own business. But he doesn't. That's because a man who loved orchids has been found dead. And so has a woman who asked for Joe's help. Never one to walk away from a challenge, Joe is plunging into a world unlike any he's seen before-the frenetic, highly competitive world of the orchid enthusiast. And suddenly Joe Portugal-actor, cactus lover, reluctant sleuth-is discovering that solving murder cases among the flora, fauna, and...

Back in ’68 they made killer music…now their music is killing them. It’s been thirty years since Joe Portugal put his electric guitar away. Maybe that’s one reason he’s suffering a serious case of the mid-life doldrums. Then Joe stumbles upon a chance to put the band he was in as a teenager back together. And maybe his life too. All he has to do is find the lead guitarist, who hasn’t been seen since the 70s. But when he starts to look, it’s quickly clear that someone doesn’t want to see a reunion tour...someone who’s very handy with a gun. Praise for the Joe Portugal mysteries: “I love reading Nathan Walpow books…a solid, intelligent mystery…add Walpow’s marvelous sense of humor...