While searching for her father, a runaway stumbles into a deadly mess
At thirteen, Mandy was too old for spanking when her stepfather first took her over his knee. She's didn't mind the pain, but hated the look in his eye and his lingering hand. By the time she's fifteen, this young spitfire can't take any more of his unwanted groping. With seventy-four bucks in her pocket, she packs her things and buys the bus ticket that will change her...

One man sells his soul to save an innocent—who turns out not to be so innocent after all
Graham meets Sonya outside of his real estate office. She is sixteen, beautiful, and showing just the right amount of leg. He’s ruminating on those legs when she drops the bombshell—she’s there because Graham’s brother, Burl, raped her, leaving her frightened, pregnant, and very much alone. She was spending the night...

Seventeen hardboiled crime stories from the “poet of the tabloid murder” and author of Double Indemnity (Edmund Wilson).
They call him Lucky—but he has never had a lucky day in his life. A nineteen-year-old hobo just starting to ride the rails, he is hiding in the coal car when the railroad detective comes through. They get into a scuffle, and Lucky’s hand finds a railroad spike. Before he knows it, he has...

A hijacker and his hostage escape to a very strange, very dangerous farm. Since his father died, every Saturday night has been the same for Dave and his mother. She starts by talking - aimless, weird fantasies about get-rich-quick schemes that never come to anything - but finally she goes silent, and that's when Dave becomes afraid. Mom has a way of getting very close that is repellent and appealing all at once, and he's terrified of where it might...

For the love of a beautiful waitress, a meat salesman will turn butcher. Clay Lockwood enters the Portico with corned beef on his mind. He's a top distributing executive with Grant's Meats, and the contract with the Portico restaurant chain is only the latest in a long line of boardroom coups. He comes for lunch, and eats his fill of his company's beef, but leaves with an entirely different hunger gnawing at his gut - a volcanic passion that will...

A collection of stories, both early and late, that show how James M. Cain made his name There is a hungry tiger loose in the house, and that is not good news for anyone. A jealous husband let the animal out of his cage hoping he would eat his wife alive, but tigers aren't used to taking orders. This jungle cat will get his meal, and he doesn't care where it comes from. "The Baby in the Icebox" begins with a murdered wildcat and ends with a dead human-and...