Craig Rice

From Hollywood’s Black Dahlia to the Arkansas Bluebeard: an anthology of true-crime profiles by “the grand dame of mystery” (Ed Gorman) Whether venturing into a blood-spattered farm in Texas, down a lonely mountain road in Alabama, or into the deceptively sunny Ohio suburbs, acclaimed...

From suburban cocktail parties to music halls to the precarious ledge of a high-rise, Chicago Attorney John J. Malone is willing to take on any case - as long as it’ll pay his bar tab....

This Thanksgiving, two birds of a feather are about to get plucked. Former con-artist photographers Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak are en route from the grit of New York City to the glitter of Sunset Boulevard when their dreams are waylaid in a tragic roadside accident with an errant turkey. But...

A Chicago attorney scours the Big Apple for a missing bride and a wedding-night murderer in a mystery that’s “Miss Rice at her best” (The New Yorker). On a break from the Windy City, aspiring crime novelist Jake Justus and his wife, Helene, are acquainting themselves with Manhattan’s...

A dozen murders and counting - and any one of them could lead a Chicago attorney to a hotheaded female tycoon. It’s 11:59 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, and criminal lawyer John J. Malone is nursing his blues in a Chicago dive bar. He’s been two-timed by his inamorata and abandoned by his...

Radio star Nelle Brown is known coast-to-coast for her sweet and sultry voice. But her press agent and manager, Jake Justus, is familiar with another side of the darling of the airwaves....

Press agent Jake Justus doesn’t care if all of Chicago drops dead. He’s just tied the knot with debutante Helene Brand, and a Bermuda honeymoon is only three in-flight martinis away. But the shooting death of a man in broad daylight, on the busiest shopping day of the year, with plenty of...

One postman! Two postmen! Three postmen! All murdered! John J. Malone sticks his nose into the case of the dead postmen and picks up a crack on the head, an Australian beer hound, and six redheaded twins....

There has never been a woman as beautiful as top model Delora Deanne. But Delora Deanne doesn’t really exist....

Being framed for murder is the least of a Chicago attorney’s problems in this dizzying thriller. Attorney John J. Malone, steadfast, barfly, and proud defender of the guilty, has a lot of enemies, but few more formidable than Chicago financier and anti-vice crusader Leonard Estapole. So it...

Anna Marie St. Clair was a normal Wisconsin-farm-girl-turned-mistress when she was framed for the murder of her racketeer boyfriend, one of Chicago’s sleaziest politicians. Sentenced to death, and only hours from getting fried, a lucky hitch sets Anna Marie free....

The Big Midget is the hit of the show in Jake Justus’ night club, until someone puts an abrupt end to the Midget. Why were 11 unmatched silk stockings used as a noose? Who conked Jake when he got on the killer’s trail? John J. Malone finds all the answers with the energetic and hilarious...

A midway murder sends a terrified eyewitness running for her life - from a cop, a con, and her own secrets - in this mystery by the author of the John J. Malone series....

From the author of the John J. Malone Mysteries: An estranged relative becomes heir to a Chesapeake Bay fortune - and his family’s ghostly history....