Jake Blake is a private detective short on cash when he meets a rich and beautiful young woman looking to escape her father’s smothering influence. Unfortunately for Jake, the smothering influence includes two thugs hired to protect her—and the woman is in fact not the daughter of the man she wants to escape, but his wife. Now Jake has two angry thugs and one jealous husband on his case. As Jake becomes more deeply involved with this glamorous and possibly crazy woman, he becomes entangled in a web of deceit, intrigue—and multiple murders. Brilliant, sardonic, and full of surprises, Wild Wives is one wild ride.

High Priest of California, first published in 1953, is a gritty noir thriller by Charles Willeford. The book, Willeford’s first novel, centers on San Francisco used-car salesman Russell Haxby, a highly unpleasant character, who, motivated perhaps by sheer boredom, engages in small time cons and seduces a married woman. Willeford (1919-1988) is best known for his books featuring hardboiled detective Hoke Moseley. A roaring saga of the male animal on the prowl—The world was his oyster—and women his pearls!

This Ace-Double combines two of Willeford's classics of hard-boiled fiction into one volume. 'Hight Priest of California' recounts the story of Russell Haxby, a ruthless used car saleman obsessed with manipulating and cavorting with married women. A wry, sardonic tale of lust, hypocrisy and intrigue, it deserves its reputation as one of the ballsiest hard-boiled tales ever written. 'Wild Wives' is equally as amoral, sexy and brutal. A tale of deception featuring the crooked detective Jacob Blake, it's packed with intrigue, deceit and multiple murders.

A driven art critic’s plan to steal a painting leads to murder in this classic neo-noir novel by the author of the Hoke Moseley series. Fast-talking, backstabbing, womanizing, and fiercely ambitious art critic James Figueras will do anything—blackmail, burglary, and beyond—to make a name for himself. When an unscrupulous collector offers Figueras a career-making chance to interview Jacques Debierue, the greatest living—and most reclusive—artist, the critic must decide how far he will go to become the art-world celebrity he hungers to be. Will Figueras stop at the opportunity to skim some cream for himself or push beyond morality’s limits to a bigger payoff? Crossing the art world with the underworld, Willeford creates a novel of dark hue and high aesthetic polish. The Burnt Orange Heresy—the 1970s crime classic now back in print—has lost none of its savage delights as it re-creates the making of a murderer, calmly and with exquisite tension, while satirizing the workings of the art world as the ultimate con. Now a major motion picture starring Donald Sutherland and Mick Jagger Praise for The Burnt Orange Heresy “Stunning . . . A novel full of genuine fun that also manages to make a level statement about the art world and its hermetic credulities.” —New Yorker

In post-World War II Los Angeles, a disillusioned used car salesman seeks revenge after his attempt to make the great American film fails miserably. Richard Hudson, woman chaser and used car salesman, has a pimp’s awareness of the ways women (and men) are most vulnerable. One day Richard decides to make an ambitious film, which turns into a fiasco. Enraged, he exacts revenge on all who have crossed him. Praise for The Woman Chaser “A pitilessly hilarious dissection of the American male psyche.” —Chicago Tribune “The most eloquently brainy and exacting pulp-fiction ever fabricated!”—Village Voice