James Hadley Chase

Articles and stories contributed to the Royal Air Force journal during the World War II.

Crazed millionaire Kester Weidmann believes money can buy everything - even life and death. So when his brother dies, Weidmann seeks the services of a voodoo expert to bring him back to life. He finds Rollo, a crooked nightclub owner who seizes the opportunity for the biggest con of the century. But Rollo had not reckoned for the involvement of Celie, his exotic mistress, and Butch, the nightclub's bouncer. And he had certainly not reckoned they would decide the Weidmann fortune was more important than his own neck....

Miss Blandish - innocent, exquisite, vulnerable heiress - is kidnapped by a gang of ruthless hoods who've never tried big-time crime. Foiled by their own vicious ineptitude and the greed of a superior mob, the kidnappers lose their million dollar prize. Blandish, terrified and broken, is now the captive of Ma' Grisson and her sadistic, sexually deviant son Slim. When Dave Fenner was hired to solve the Blandish kidnapping, he knew the on finding the girl were against him - the cops were still looking for her three months after the ransom had been paid. And the kidnappers, Riley and his gang, had disappeared in to thin air. But what none of them knew was that Riley himself had been wiped out by a rival gang - and the heiress was now in the hands of Ma Grisson and her son Slim, a vicious killer who couldn't stay away from women...especially his beautiful new captive. By the time Fenner began to close in on them, some terrible things had happened to Miss Blandish...

Well, Now, My Pretty Serge Maisky has dreamed for years of the Big Steal - a brilliant plan to rob the Paradise City Casino where the richest gamblers in the world fought battles at the turn of a card... But this superb, minutely-planned robbery was to go horribly wrong. For too many other people - some of them members of Maisky's own gang - had plans to get rich quick on those two and half million dollars! An Ear to the Ground hen a necklace is as beautiful as the Esmaldi with its hundred sparkling diamonds, it is not surprising that it causes powerful emotions. It is an object that people will do anything to obtain – even murder. For Al Barney, general idler and layabout, this comes as no surprise for he knows the peculiar history that the necklace holds – an ancient story of passion, jealousy and hatred. Yet as events unfold, it becomes clear that this violent story is far from over…. There's a Hippie on the Highway It seemed like a good idea at the time to ex-paratroop sergeant Harry Mitchell, home after three years in the deadly jungles of Vietnam. Head south to Florida, get a summer job, soak up some sun, relax a bit. But when he got to Paradise City he found himself drawn into a lethal set-up where dumped corpses, smuggling operations, over-ambitious cops, hired killers and a sexy little double-crosser called Nina combined to make life very unhealthy. It was just as well for Harry Mitchell that he'd learned to look after himself in Vietnam...

My dear Cherry, Some time ago you warned me against writing short stories. You stressed that the public didn't like them, and that I would be heading for a big flop if I persisted. Your views have always proved sound, so I've laid off until now. My present activities don't permit me to tackle a full-length novel, but as I have a number of situations up my sleeve I have been tempted to turn them into shorts. Have a little flutter on the book. Personally, I think it'll go. Not because it is better written than those which have flopped, but because the stories have got enough dynamite in them to make the average guy forget the blackout and the blitz--which, after all, is what we all want to do at this moment. Anyway, here's the manuscript, and when you're not too busy--Get a load of this! Yours, JAMES HADLEY CHASE

Carol Blandish was the voluptuous daughter of Miss Blandish, and only granddaughter of millionaire John Blandish. The trouble was that she had been conceived when her mother had been kidnapped and repeatedly raped by mentally degenerate Slim Grissom. Carol herself suffers from a split personality and has to be confined in a high security mental asylum. She is the only heiress to the Blandish millions, and all she has to do, to inherit the inheritance money, is to escape and stay out for fourteen days. But a whole lot of people are also after the Blandish fortune - and that means that they are after Carol. Once outside the asylum, she finds herself mixed up in a deadly hide-and-seek game of violence and sudden death. There is Roy Larson, who cannot keep his hands off her beautiful body; there are the Sullivans, professional killers, who'd rather have their hands on the money. And there is newspaperman, Phil Magarth and his girlfriend, Veda, well-meaning, but as greedy as they come....

From the moment that Cora Brant stepped into the smoky atmosphere of 'Joe's Club', flaunting a figure that slacks and a too-thin sweater did nothing to conceal, George Fraser was lost. George, in spite of his imposing appearance, was timid and lonely, living in a dream world of racketeers, gunfights and fascinating women: bolstering up his inferiority complex by imagining himself the toughest gangster of them all. Through Cora, all these fantasies were to come true. George was to become ensnared in a net of intrigue, and a vicious killer hunted, not only by the police, but by the gang he had doubled-crossed.

Two brothers and their mother each try in their own way to come to terms with the father's death and in the process learn to cope with a disease that threatens to cripple all of them.

Lucille Aitkin was the kind of woman who encouraged men to run around after her and most men were more than happy to do so - so why did she suddenly want to learn to drive rather than being chauffer-driven in style? And why was Chester Scott's Cadillac covered with bloodstains on the wrong side? And at the same time, why was patrol officer O'Brien run over on a deserted beach road when he should have been on duty on the highway? It seems that somebody knows how these events are connected, and whoever it is seems intent on blackmail.

Greed and lust led lovely Julie Holland down the dark road to murder. Being in love with a cheap crook promised to be exciting, but she found he already had a jealous mistress. He also had a friend called Theo, who specialized in disfiguring beautiful women with an acid bath in the face. Suddenly Julie found she was a partner in the most sensational robbery London had seen for a decade. She had agreed to work as a ladies' maid, but had not counted on the woman being mad, nor on a blind husband who sometimes appeared to see extremely well. Still, Julie might have escaped from it all, if only she could have resisted the fabulous furs, but death was no warmer in a mink coat.

When journalist Nick Mason got a hot tip to investigate the frame-up of a man being executed for murder, he didn't know what he was in for. At the gas chamber, it was Vessi's last words that gave Mason the clue to a peculiar cover up at the respectable Mackenzie Fabric Corporation. But when Mason gets warned off by a cold-eyed gunman and a dangerous hooker called Blondie, he would have abandoned the whole investigation... if it weren't for the irresistible Mardi, the girl from Mackenzie Fabrics who might be able to lead him to the truth.