Had he THE WILL TO KILL? IT BEGAN WITH THIS:“I came out of the blackout standing in our bedroom . . . standing there in the moonlight with the scissors glinting in my hand . . . standing over the body of Marie and looking at the place where those same scissors had cut her throat . . .” IT ENDED WITH:Women of the streets mutilated and slain, kids scared of their shadows, people staying off the streets and huddling behind doors and windows—a city gripped by fear! AND ALWAYS THE QUESTION: “WAS I THE MANIAC KILLER?” IT’S ROBERT BLOCH’S LATEST! An ACE BOOK Original Novel Never Before Published

THE SCARF Fame—of a sort—came early to Dan Morley. So did temptation. So did the easy money and the glittering women who thrust it on him, begging him to accept. And so did murder. But not just one, not just two . . .

In 'Shooting Star', a famous movie star is found dead on the set of his latest picture - drugs hastily disposed of at the scene of the crime. In 'Spiderweb', Eddie Haines is collecting secrets from his wealthy clients in order to blackmail them.

FIFTEEN STORIES ABOUT THE MOST HEINOUS CRIME OF ALL…Of all the crimes humankind can commit, the act of murder—of cold-bloodedly taking another human life—is often the most shocking, and can tear couples, families, and even entire towns apart.Mystery Writers of America is proud to present this volume in the Classics series, featuring fourteen stories by acclaimed writers, all exploring the terrible crime of murder. From chill-master Robert Bloch comes a story of outwardly domestic bliss, but with rotten secrets at its core. Mystery master Dorothy Salisbury Davis takes us to a small town where the killing of a mean-spirited landscaper makes the local sheriff question everything he knows in his pursuit of justice. Joe Gores visits the harsh, unforgiving land of South Africa, where a farmer is forever chased by the sins of his past. Patricia McGerr invites us to the White House, where a foreign dignitary's gift to the First Lady may...

HOLLIS TODD is one of the richest men in the world, a flamboyant and dynamic multimillionaire who possesses everything in the world, except a good heart. With death imminent, he is flown to the country’s most prestigious heart transplant hospital, where shortly afterward the dying victim of an automobile accident is brought in. He is Tony Polanski, former Olympic track star already suffering a fatal disease—and the perfect donor. After his death, his heart is successfully transplanted to Todd, and so “the heart of one of the world’s great athletes beats on in the body of one of the world’s richest men.” But to Dr. Charles Everett, a member of the surgery team, there is something too fortuitous about the circumstances. Against spirited opposition and stern warnings, he delves deeper and deeper into the case, eventually exposing a masterly conceived and executed plan to insure the longevity of Todd, the man who wants to stay alive more than anything in the world. His disclosure triggers a chain reaction that brings the story to a shattering climax. Emphasizing, throughout, the moral and ethical dilemmas posed by transplants, and at the same time combining good surgery (“Medicine is just another form of human endeavor, the good and the bad.”) with good mystery (“. . . he was a far better doctor than he was a detective.”), The Todd Dossier is a novel both topical and engrossing, entertaining and informative.

Contents: Try This for Psis Comfort Me My Robot Talent The Professor Plays It Square Block that Metaphor Wheel and Deal You Got to Have Brains You Could Be Wrong Egghead Dead-End Doctor Change of Heart Edifice Complex Constant Reader

14 short stories by Robert Bloch Sweets to the Sweet The Dream-MakersThe Sorcerer’s ApprenticeI Kiss Your Shadow—The Proper SpiritThe Cheaters Hungarian Rhapsody The Light-House The Hungry House Sleeping BeautySweet SixteenThe Mandarin’s Canaries Return to the SabbathOne Way to Mars

HOLLYWOOD. COLOSSAL. COMPELLING. CORRUPT. Where the only sin is “not making it” . . . where beautiful people do very ugly things to get to the top . . . where desperate men and women plummet overnight from the peak of power to the lethal valley of the dolls: DAWN—The superstarlet with a child’s face and a woman’s passions—ready for fame, ripe for corruption. HARKER—The great director, internationally praised, universally feared. A genius on the set—a monster in the bedroom. TOMMY—He stands apart from their deadly games—until he suddenly wakes to find himself trapped in the 24-hour nightmare called Hollywood. THE STAR STALKER is a searing, no-holds-barred novel that tells it the way it really is.

Between 1942 and 1950, Robert Bloch (known for writing the novel Psycho, as well as three classic Star Trek episodes) wrote about the extremely tall tales of Lefty Feep, a down-and-out lout. I have footnoted some of the more arcane references (it seems language has changed substantially, even since the 1940s, but then some of the cultural references in early Simpsons episodes are hard to follow now).

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

SNEAK PREVIEW Long shot: The domed city of Holywood, self-contained, functioning perfectly—as it has since it was sealed off against fallout generations ago. The camera moves in, follows a man in priestly white through the doors of Twenty-First-Century-Vox and, into a conference room. He is joined by others—some clad in Technobility blue, some in the khaki of the Brass. The man in the archaic business suit at the head of the table is ARCHER, His MGMinence. The camera tightens on his face. As he opens his mouth, his face dissolves to that of a young man, GRAHAM, who says: “Space Operas are important to social conditioning. The hero must be dark; the heroine, blonde; the monster, green; and the plot . . .”

    From Kirkus Review     Yes, Jack the Ripper again-in a fiction/fact goulash that offers lots of graphic gore, lots of suspects (including the most familiar ones), and a farfetched, unsatisfying solution. In 1888 London the soon-to-be-famous murders begin, with Whitechapel prostitutes suffering dreadful sexual mutilations in the slaying process. At the local hospital young American doctor Mark Robinson is highly disturbed by the killings-especially since the Ripper suspects include a few of his colleagues (like manic, lecherous surgeon Jeremy Hume). But, while Mark does some amateur sleuthing and unsuccessfully courts lovely medical-assistant Eva Sloane, Bloch also offers teasing vignettes of other possible Rippers: a misogynistic barrister; a Jewish butcher; and, of course, the Duke of Clarence-Queen Victoria's kinky grandson Eddy. So, through the novel's first half, this merry-go-round of killings and possible killers moves by competently. Then, however, with little more substance to offer before unveiling his Ripper theory, Bloch more or less treads water for the next 100 pages: a few of the suspects are eliminated via alibis or death; there's a series of foolish cameo appearances by famous period figures-Conan Doyle, Richard Mansfield, Shaw, Oscar Wilde… and the Elephant Man. And finally, racing to save enigmatic Eva from the Ripper, Mark comes face to face with the crazed psycho, a much less credible one than Bloch's Norman Bates (Psycho). In sum: for Ripper devotees only-who may overlook the limp padding and the many inauthentic lapses (anachronisms, Americanisms) in the period dialogue.      ***          "A shrewd combination of psychological theory (was the Ripper a sadist, a monomaniac, or an ordinary man with a monster inside?) and well-researched historical detail… Bloch knows his Ripper lore, gives a telling description of Whitechapel poverty and delivers an eerie thriller."     - Chicago Sun Times          "You'll need a few days in a sanitarium after reading this one."     - Los Angeles Times          "May well nudge out PSYCHO as Bloch's most popular novel."     - The Washington Post

Robert Bloch, the creator of Psycho, takes you into the inner recesses of the mind of a madman. A man bent on revenge that comes out of the night, grabbing its victims by the throat and giving no quarter. — From the moment Karen Raymond entered the sanatorium, she knew something was terribly wrong. The doctors had been brutally murdered, the patients had escaped. Was she to be the killers next victim?