Robert Colby: 23 books

It was more than 150 years ago that Uncle Billy" Leonard took refuge from the hellish heat in the shade beneath a Ponderosa pine, breathing in relief to his companions: "Boys, this has got to be Paradise!" Or so the story goes. Yet it is no fiction that the settlement grew to be more than just a stop...

''You asked my business,'' remarked Dasher, ''and I told you that I’m a trouble-shooter. I shoot trouble - with this.'' He waved the .45. ''And you’re trouble. My client asked that you both be removed, and I’m most obliging, you see, at a price.'' ''Why?'' cried Marian. ''Why should he...

She put her head on my shoulder. Her hand slid off my thigh and into my lap, paused. She kissed my ear, lingered there. ''And what are you afraid of?'' she whispered. ''Afraid you’ll stop,'' I said against the moist spread of her lips. ''I couldn’t,'' she answered, falling back on...

Driving to Miami, Scott Daniels paused to rescue a lady in distress. She was in a road house, abandoned by her date, and so Scott offered Valerie a lift. No sooner had they started off, then they spotted the boyfriend’s car smashed in an accident. Valerie begged Scott to save her good name by salvaging...

Now that the killer was hunting him down, now that he was about to die, Neil wondered: Was Corinne worth dying for? She had lied to him, she had cheated him and been unfaithful to him. Now she had betrayed him. But Neil understood at last. He was as helpless against Corinne as he was against the bullets that were waiting for him. A classic crime novel from a master of the genre!

Her fortune was the price on her head Burt Keating had been trying to make the acquaintance of his pretty red-headed neighbor, but he wasn’t getting very far - until the day she escaped from a strange roadside encounter. For when it turned out that murder had resulted from the affair, she...

Barry Lunsford was down on his luck. He had no money, no girl and a lousy job. Then he found $300,000 in stolen cash. But his brief fling in paradise was shattered by the two vicious hoods who wanted the money back. They gave him a choice: return the cash or they’d carve Iris up into little pieces and feed her to the fish. It was his move.

It started like most of Marian’s troubles, because of her betting the ponies - that consuming habit which she herself could hardly understand. Someone told her once that she wanted to lose. But Marian knew that was nonsense. She wanted to win, win, win! This time when Marian lost,...

"If you want a feel for the real Fifties in the form of a grim caper novel, this is your book. It's tight, deftly plotted and one of those hardboiled novels that is genuinely tough without showing off." -- Ed Gorman Greg Driscoll, a wealthy and respected businessman, has two cars,...

For Ross Elliot, the summer held no promise. With his teaching duties over until fall, he found himself facing boredom, with time on his hands. Which was why he didn’t hesitate to involve himself in the affairs of one Barbara Erickson, ex-student and accused murderess. As far as Elliot was...

Kim affected men like an electric current. And she usually set off the charge. But when Eddie Tarino took her for a cruise on his yacht, she was like a little girl at the zoo - outside the leopard’s cage. Tarino’s yacht parties were wild - featuring every kind of vice. But before this one...

There were seven of them, that white-hot summer at Malibu, with seven different deadly desires, each primed for explosion - and each focused on the destruction-hungry woman named Star Osborne.

Bonnie wanted only one thing: Big money. She had everything she needed to get it - a body that tormented men and an air of sensual excitement that teased as it promised. She was available - for a price. Until she met Larry Duggan, whose animal magnetism reduced her to a state of slavish adoration....

Fun-crazy Kim Rumshaw refused to wall herself away from any available men just because she was engaged to Howard Massey. So when gangster Eddie Tarino invited her to play love games on his yacht, she was eager and willing to go. Later Kim wa just as eager to forget the whole affair. But Tarino...