EVEN MORE INCOMING

• "George G. Gilman" (Terry Harknett), Edge #3:  Apache Death.  Adult entry in what may be the most violent western series ever published.  "Out of the American west rides a new hero.  He rides alone, trusts no one.  Edge isn't fair, doesn't worry much...and even when he loses he's better off than the poor guy who thinks he's won.  Fairness is what the other guy worries about.  Fear is for losers.  You won't forget Edge, nobody alive does."
• "Matthew S. Hart" (Geo. W. Proctor, this time), Cody's Law #7:  End of the Line.  Western. ( The Cody's Law series ran for 12 books, most written by James Reasoner.  Reasoner wrote the first six books in the series , then co-authored books 8, 9, 11, and 12 with Bill Crider.  Rumor has it that Joe R. Lansdale contributed one chapter to End of the Line.) "When a Teas and Pacific train jumps the rail near the quiet town of Terrell, it's soon apparent that the bloody incident was no accident.  Someone deliberately pulled the spikes on that section of track, and now it's up to Texas Ranger Sam Cody to find out who.  Bur posing as a railroad detective will get Cody more than answers.  It will get him ambushed, shot at. and kidnapped.  and it will put the rugged lawman in dangerous proximity to a gun-toting beauty who'll do anything to protect her father and brother from a hangman's noose -- even fill a handsome Ranger full of lead."
• "Lee Child" (Jim Grant), Echo Burning.  A Jack Reacher thriller.  "Thumbing across the scorched Texas desert, Jack Reacher has nowhere to go and all the time in the world to get there.  Cruising the same stretch of two-lane blacktop is Carmen Greer*.  For Reacher, the lift comes with a hitch.  Carmen's got a story to tell, and it's a wild one -- all about her husband, her family secrets, and a hometown that's purely gothic.  She's also got a plan.  Reacher's part of it.  And before the sun sets, this ride could cost them both their lives."
• Peter Rabe, Stop This Man!  Crime thriller.  "All Tony Catell knew when he broke into the university science lab was that they had a gold ingot on the premises for some sort of experiment.  So he stole it.  What he didn't know was that the experiment involved nuclear power -- and that the gold was dangerously radioactive.  Now the cops and the FBI are on Tony's trail, Tony's underworld contacts don't want anything to do with him, and the loot he's lugging around is leaving a swath of radiation sickness and death in his path.  And since he's just come from his third stint in prison, if they catch him, he's not going back to jail -- he's going to the electric chair..."  A Hardcase Crime reprint edition, so it's hard to go wrong here.
• Dennis Wheatley, The Launching of Roger Brook.  Historical novel, the first of Wheatley's Roger Brook spy adventures.  "George the Mad is still on England's throne, having cost that nation her most valued colonies.  Marie Antoinette and Louis are still flaunting their royal vanities and debaucheries in France's angry, revolutionary faces.  Europe is a tinderbox, who will strike the match?  Tall, blue-eyed Roger Brook, soon to become Prime Minister Pitt's most resourceful secret agent, was just setting out to find fame, fortune and adventure in 1783.  He might never had set out at all if it had not been for the wicked Georgina Thursby, and he most certainly would never had been involved in the secrets of French foreign policy had it not been for the ravishing Athenais de Rochambeau; but once on the way, it would take more than women to stop him..."  Wheatley (1897-1977) was at one time one of the world's best-selling authors, but he has fallen out of favor.  I still enjoy his work, however.

* Carmen Greer!  Are you kidding me!