A Touch of Death Hard Case Crime Book 17 edition by Charles Williams Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks
Download As PDF : A Touch of Death Hard Case Crime Book 17 edition by Charles Williams Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks 
The score would be an easy one—if it weren’t for the women involved
If you choose to read just one pulp novel in your lifetime, this would be an excellent choice. Guaranteed you will choose to pick up another one or two. Charles Williams was one of the top authors of the pulp era of the fifties. He is not to be confused with the other Charles Williams, who wrote theological books and was often linked with C.S. Lewis. This Charles Williams wrote in a smooth, flowing style that had wider appeal than just the pulp audience of many other authors. This book is not some dark and dreary crawl through the gutter of life by some two-bit punk who ran off with the boss's wife and money. Rather, it is a well-executed, well-plotted masterpiece that is worth reading more than once. It is obvious why Hard Case Crime chose this book from among Williams' work to feature in its crime series.
Here you have an ex-college football player (Scarborough) reduced to selling door-to-door who explains that "You can't eat six-year-old football scores." He's soured and possibly has run out of dreams at the ripe old age of twenty-eight.
You have Diana James, a brunette "sunbathing in the bottom part of a two-fragment bathing suit" who offers him a chance to walk off with a piece of $120,000. She was no bimbo, though. "She was sharp." "She had it figured out from every angle." She gave him a chance to think about the reward first and, when he got used to that, "you could let your ideas grow a little. You didn't have to jump in cold. You waded in."
You have a second femme fatale at war with the brunette. This one, Madelon Butler, was also a brunette, "with a magnolia complexion and big, smoky-looking eyes. And a bitch right out of the book." "She was almost unbelievably beautiful, and she was drunk as a lord." She scared the living hell out of him. "An icicle walked slowly up my spine and sat between my shoulder blades." Even when she's in his arms, she is like "a beautiful and enraged wildcat." "If she wanted ice water, I thought, all she had to do was open up a vein." Wow! "God knows what went on inside that chromium-plated soul of hers, but no human being born could go on taking that kind of pressure forever without breaking."
So you have two crazy, gorgeous women, a hidden fortune that had been embezzled from the banks, a man who was probably dead, although his body was never found, married to one of these women and having an affair with the other. Once you mix that together, boy, do you have a tale to tell. He had warned James that he did not want any "wild-haired babes blowing their tops."
Scarborough isn't sure how he fits in here and wonders if he is being set up as a patsy or a "dead duck." James is setting him up as a "sucker" and, if he can't pull off the job, she would just send out the next sucker. "I'd been played for a sucker by a smooth operator," he explains. These two women are both lying to him and throwing him curves, left and right. Throughout the story, there is suspicion and distrust and he constantly wonders if the knife will end up in his back or the scissors in his throat.
Scarborough is never sure who all the players are or who is setting up who. Not even when the ash blonde with the angelic face pays him a visit.
This book has it all, murder, kidnapping, snipers, police dragnets, and, most of all, it has it all turning to hell as Scarborough starts to become more and more unglued. He had been warned about her, hadn't he? He would never get any of the money, he'd been told. "I wished she were dead. I wished she'd never been born, or that I had never heard of her," he says. "
This novel is so well-written that the pages literally melt into your hands as you read them. It is narrated in such a perfect pace that the reader doesn't stumble over long flowery descriptions or complain that there is too much action or too many players.
Williams tells this tale perfectly, as Scarborough feels the noose tightening around his neck and the cage he is in gets smaller and smaller, the reader feels him breaking apart.
I give this novel the highest marks and highly recommend it.
Tags : A Touch of Death (Hard Case Crime Book 17) - Kindle edition by Charles Williams. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading A Touch of Death (Hard Case Crime Book 17).,ebook,Charles Williams,A Touch of Death (Hard Case Crime Book 17),MysteriousPress.comOpen Road
People also read other books :
"A Touch of Death" was originally published in 1953 and re-released as part of the outstanding Hard Case Crime series in 2006. It's another compelling crime noir from a master author. The protagonist is Lee Scarborough, a former college football star who has hit on hard times. He's barely scraping a living as a salesman, when he meets a young woman with a plan. She knows about a hidden cache of money, and she needs Lee's help to get it. Of course, there's more here than meets the eye, and Lee soon finds himself running from the law.
Williams' work here is top-notch and loaded with the kind of hard-boiled language and descriptions characteristic of the genre ("You knew she could turn on the honey-chile like throwing a switch at Boulder Dam."). Lee is a typical crime noir character - he's not inherently bad, but he's willing to do some bad things to survive. Of course, this type of book always has a gorgeous femme fatale, and "A Touch of Death" gives us three, focusing on a lovely widow (Madelon Butler) who may or may not have murdered her husband. Madelon is a sociopath of the highest order, and the character is fascinating. Another winner from Hard Case Crime.
So, I'm getting my hair done yesterday and I'm reading "A Touch of Death." This is a Hard Case Crime book so the cover is somewhat provocative. I see several people in the salon look at the cover. There are a few wrinkled noses. What these folks don't know is that I'm reading some very fine prose.
I love noir novels. The traditional mystery, no matter who wretched the crime, usually ends with justice being served. In noir mysteries the only certainty is that things will end very badly. The reader wants to know how wretched the denoument will be, how will it be brought about, and how long will it take. Protagonists in noir novels live in a world of reality based paranoia. Everyone really is out to get them.
Lee Scarborough is an ex-football player down on his luck. When he meets the seductive Diana James and she tells him about a chance to get half of $120,000 (if he can figure out where it's stashed) he agrees to break into the house owned by missing bank executive J. Butler and his wife Madelon. The idea is that Mr. Butler absconded with the funds but was murdered and Madelon now has them Alas, when Lee gets to the house, he discovers Madelon, though very drunk, is very much there as is someone who wants to kill her.
What follows is a fabulous, tautly written tale of multiple betrayals and plot twists. Lee Scarborough and Madelon are both characters of great wit. Williams kept me reading all day and into the evening. It was worth a somewhat shorter night of sleep
Pulp Perfection
If you choose to read just one pulp novel in your lifetime, this would be an excellent choice. Guaranteed you will choose to pick up another one or two. Charles Williams was one of the top authors of the pulp era of the fifties. He is not to be confused with the other Charles Williams, who wrote theological books and was often linked with C.S. Lewis. This Charles Williams wrote in a smooth, flowing style that had wider appeal than just the pulp audience of many other authors. This book is not some dark and dreary crawl through the gutter of life by some two-bit punk who ran off with the boss's wife and money. Rather, it is a well-executed, well-plotted masterpiece that is worth reading more than once. It is obvious why Hard Case Crime chose this book from among Williams' work to feature in its crime series.
Here you have an ex-college football player (Scarborough) reduced to selling door-to-door who explains that "You can't eat six-year-old football scores." He's soured and possibly has run out of dreams at the ripe old age of twenty-eight.
You have Diana James, a brunette "sunbathing in the bottom part of a two-fragment bathing suit" who offers him a chance to walk off with a piece of $120,000. She was no bimbo, though. "She was sharp." "She had it figured out from every angle." She gave him a chance to think about the reward first and, when he got used to that, "you could let your ideas grow a little. You didn't have to jump in cold. You waded in."
You have a second femme fatale at war with the brunette. This one, Madelon Butler, was also a brunette, "with a magnolia complexion and big, smoky-looking eyes. And a bitch right out of the book." "She was almost unbelievably beautiful, and she was drunk as a lord." She scared the living hell out of him. "An icicle walked slowly up my spine and sat between my shoulder blades." Even when she's in his arms, she is like "a beautiful and enraged wildcat." "If she wanted ice water, I thought, all she had to do was open up a vein." Wow! "God knows what went on inside that chromium-plated soul of hers, but no human being born could go on taking that kind of pressure forever without breaking."
So you have two crazy, gorgeous women, a hidden fortune that had been embezzled from the banks, a man who was probably dead, although his body was never found, married to one of these women and having an affair with the other. Once you mix that together, boy, do you have a tale to tell. He had warned James that he did not want any "wild-haired babes blowing their tops."
Scarborough isn't sure how he fits in here and wonders if he is being set up as a patsy or a "dead duck." James is setting him up as a "sucker" and, if he can't pull off the job, she would just send out the next sucker. "I'd been played for a sucker by a smooth operator," he explains. These two women are both lying to him and throwing him curves, left and right. Throughout the story, there is suspicion and distrust and he constantly wonders if the knife will end up in his back or the scissors in his throat.
Scarborough is never sure who all the players are or who is setting up who. Not even when the ash blonde with the angelic face pays him a visit.
This book has it all, murder, kidnapping, snipers, police dragnets, and, most of all, it has it all turning to hell as Scarborough starts to become more and more unglued. He had been warned about her, hadn't he? He would never get any of the money, he'd been told. "I wished she were dead. I wished she'd never been born, or that I had never heard of her," he says. "
This novel is so well-written that the pages literally melt into your hands as you read them. It is narrated in such a perfect pace that the reader doesn't stumble over long flowery descriptions or complain that there is too much action or too many players.
Williams tells this tale perfectly, as Scarborough feels the noose tightening around his neck and the cage he is in gets smaller and smaller, the reader feels him breaking apart.
I give this novel the highest marks and highly recommend it.
A Touch of Death Hard Case Crime Book 17 edition by Charles Williams Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks
Pulp PerfectionIf you choose to read just one pulp novel in your lifetime, this would be an excellent choice. Guaranteed you will choose to pick up another one or two. Charles Williams was one of the top authors of the pulp era of the fifties. He is not to be confused with the other Charles Williams, who wrote theological books and was often linked with C.S. Lewis. This Charles Williams wrote in a smooth, flowing style that had wider appeal than just the pulp audience of many other authors. This book is not some dark and dreary crawl through the gutter of life by some two-bit punk who ran off with the boss's wife and money. Rather, it is a well-executed, well-plotted masterpiece that is worth reading more than once. It is obvious why Hard Case Crime chose this book from among Williams' work to feature in its crime series.
Here you have an ex-college football player (Scarborough) reduced to selling door-to-door who explains that "You can't eat six-year-old football scores." He's soured and possibly has run out of dreams at the ripe old age of twenty-eight.
You have Diana James, a brunette "sunbathing in the bottom part of a two-fragment bathing suit" who offers him a chance to walk off with a piece of $120,000. She was no bimbo, though. "She was sharp." "She had it figured out from every angle." She gave him a chance to think about the reward first and, when he got used to that, "you could let your ideas grow a little. You didn't have to jump in cold. You waded in."
You have a second femme fatale at war with the brunette. This one, Madelon Butler, was also a brunette, "with a magnolia complexion and big, smoky-looking eyes. And a bitch right out of the book." "She was almost unbelievably beautiful, and she was drunk as a lord." She scared the living hell out of him. "An icicle walked slowly up my spine and sat between my shoulder blades." Even when she's in his arms, she is like "a beautiful and enraged wildcat." "If she wanted ice water, I thought, all she had to do was open up a vein." Wow! "God knows what went on inside that chromium-plated soul of hers, but no human being born could go on taking that kind of pressure forever without breaking."
So you have two crazy, gorgeous women, a hidden fortune that had been embezzled from the banks, a man who was probably dead, although his body was never found, married to one of these women and having an affair with the other. Once you mix that together, boy, do you have a tale to tell. He had warned James that he did not want any "wild-haired babes blowing their tops."
Scarborough isn't sure how he fits in here and wonders if he is being set up as a patsy or a "dead duck." James is setting him up as a "sucker" and, if he can't pull off the job, she would just send out the next sucker. "I'd been played for a sucker by a smooth operator," he explains. These two women are both lying to him and throwing him curves, left and right. Throughout the story, there is suspicion and distrust and he constantly wonders if the knife will end up in his back or the scissors in his throat.
Scarborough is never sure who all the players are or who is setting up who. Not even when the ash blonde with the angelic face pays him a visit.
This book has it all, murder, kidnapping, snipers, police dragnets, and, most of all, it has it all turning to hell as Scarborough starts to become more and more unglued. He had been warned about her, hadn't he? He would never get any of the money, he'd been told. "I wished she were dead. I wished she'd never been born, or that I had never heard of her," he says. "
This novel is so well-written that the pages literally melt into your hands as you read them. It is narrated in such a perfect pace that the reader doesn't stumble over long flowery descriptions or complain that there is too much action or too many players.
Williams tells this tale perfectly, as Scarborough feels the noose tightening around his neck and the cage he is in gets smaller and smaller, the reader feels him breaking apart.
I give this novel the highest marks and highly recommend it.
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Tags : A Touch of Death (Hard Case Crime Book 17) - Kindle edition by Charles Williams. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading A Touch of Death (Hard Case Crime Book 17).,ebook,Charles Williams,A Touch of Death (Hard Case Crime Book 17),MysteriousPress.comOpen Road
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A Touch of Death Hard Case Crime Book 17 edition by Charles Williams Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks Reviews
"A Touch of Death" was originally published in 1953 and re-released as part of the outstanding Hard Case Crime series in 2006. It's another compelling crime noir from a master author. The protagonist is Lee Scarborough, a former college football star who has hit on hard times. He's barely scraping a living as a salesman, when he meets a young woman with a plan. She knows about a hidden cache of money, and she needs Lee's help to get it. Of course, there's more here than meets the eye, and Lee soon finds himself running from the law.
Williams' work here is top-notch and loaded with the kind of hard-boiled language and descriptions characteristic of the genre ("You knew she could turn on the honey-chile like throwing a switch at Boulder Dam."). Lee is a typical crime noir character - he's not inherently bad, but he's willing to do some bad things to survive. Of course, this type of book always has a gorgeous femme fatale, and "A Touch of Death" gives us three, focusing on a lovely widow (Madelon Butler) who may or may not have murdered her husband. Madelon is a sociopath of the highest order, and the character is fascinating. Another winner from Hard Case Crime.
So, I'm getting my hair done yesterday and I'm reading "A Touch of Death." This is a Hard Case Crime book so the cover is somewhat provocative. I see several people in the salon look at the cover. There are a few wrinkled noses. What these folks don't know is that I'm reading some very fine prose.
I love noir novels. The traditional mystery, no matter who wretched the crime, usually ends with justice being served. In noir mysteries the only certainty is that things will end very badly. The reader wants to know how wretched the denoument will be, how will it be brought about, and how long will it take. Protagonists in noir novels live in a world of reality based paranoia. Everyone really is out to get them.
Lee Scarborough is an ex-football player down on his luck. When he meets the seductive Diana James and she tells him about a chance to get half of $120,000 (if he can figure out where it's stashed) he agrees to break into the house owned by missing bank executive J. Butler and his wife Madelon. The idea is that Mr. Butler absconded with the funds but was murdered and Madelon now has them Alas, when Lee gets to the house, he discovers Madelon, though very drunk, is very much there as is someone who wants to kill her.
What follows is a fabulous, tautly written tale of multiple betrayals and plot twists. Lee Scarborough and Madelon are both characters of great wit. Williams kept me reading all day and into the evening. It was worth a somewhat shorter night of sleep
Pulp Perfection
If you choose to read just one pulp novel in your lifetime, this would be an excellent choice. Guaranteed you will choose to pick up another one or two. Charles Williams was one of the top authors of the pulp era of the fifties. He is not to be confused with the other Charles Williams, who wrote theological books and was often linked with C.S. Lewis. This Charles Williams wrote in a smooth, flowing style that had wider appeal than just the pulp audience of many other authors. This book is not some dark and dreary crawl through the gutter of life by some two-bit punk who ran off with the boss's wife and money. Rather, it is a well-executed, well-plotted masterpiece that is worth reading more than once. It is obvious why Hard Case Crime chose this book from among Williams' work to feature in its crime series.
Here you have an ex-college football player (Scarborough) reduced to selling door-to-door who explains that "You can't eat six-year-old football scores." He's soured and possibly has run out of dreams at the ripe old age of twenty-eight.
You have Diana James, a brunette "sunbathing in the bottom part of a two-fragment bathing suit" who offers him a chance to walk off with a piece of $120,000. She was no bimbo, though. "She was sharp." "She had it figured out from every angle." She gave him a chance to think about the reward first and, when he got used to that, "you could let your ideas grow a little. You didn't have to jump in cold. You waded in."
You have a second femme fatale at war with the brunette. This one, Madelon Butler, was also a brunette, "with a magnolia complexion and big, smoky-looking eyes. And a bitch right out of the book." "She was almost unbelievably beautiful, and she was drunk as a lord." She scared the living hell out of him. "An icicle walked slowly up my spine and sat between my shoulder blades." Even when she's in his arms, she is like "a beautiful and enraged wildcat." "If she wanted ice water, I thought, all she had to do was open up a vein." Wow! "God knows what went on inside that chromium-plated soul of hers, but no human being born could go on taking that kind of pressure forever without breaking."
So you have two crazy, gorgeous women, a hidden fortune that had been embezzled from the banks, a man who was probably dead, although his body was never found, married to one of these women and having an affair with the other. Once you mix that together, boy, do you have a tale to tell. He had warned James that he did not want any "wild-haired babes blowing their tops."
Scarborough isn't sure how he fits in here and wonders if he is being set up as a patsy or a "dead duck." James is setting him up as a "sucker" and, if he can't pull off the job, she would just send out the next sucker. "I'd been played for a sucker by a smooth operator," he explains. These two women are both lying to him and throwing him curves, left and right. Throughout the story, there is suspicion and distrust and he constantly wonders if the knife will end up in his back or the scissors in his throat.
Scarborough is never sure who all the players are or who is setting up who. Not even when the ash blonde with the angelic face pays him a visit.
This book has it all, murder, kidnapping, snipers, police dragnets, and, most of all, it has it all turning to hell as Scarborough starts to become more and more unglued. He had been warned about her, hadn't he? He would never get any of the money, he'd been told. "I wished she were dead. I wished she'd never been born, or that I had never heard of her," he says. "
This novel is so well-written that the pages literally melt into your hands as you read them. It is narrated in such a perfect pace that the reader doesn't stumble over long flowery descriptions or complain that there is too much action or too many players.
Williams tells this tale perfectly, as Scarborough feels the noose tightening around his neck and the cage he is in gets smaller and smaller, the reader feels him breaking apart.
I give this novel the highest marks and highly recommend it.
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