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Dead Dames Don't Sing book cover
Dead Dames Don't Sing
2016
First Published
3.53
Average Rating
74
Number of Pages
Ex-cop Jack Kiley is bored, and his work as a PI, tailing cheating spouses and investigating insurance claims, offers little to be excited about. That is, until the day he’s asked to meet with Daniel Pike, a rare book dealer who’s received an exclusive offer on a suspicious but intriguing item: an unpublished pulp crime novel by a minor but highly collectable Modernist poet. If Kiley can determine the origin of the text, Pike can verify its authenticity. To do so will mean navigating the tangled threads of jealousy and deceit surrounding the poet’s estate, and solving a mystery with roots reaching back to the Bohemian Soho of mid-twentieth century London—all things that Kiley is capable of doing. But as the would-be seller grows increasingly impatient, threatening to put the manuscript up for auction, it becomes clear that the offer has an expiration date, and he must rush to discover the truth before it’s too late.
Avg Rating
3.53
Number of Ratings
101
5 STARS
16%
4 STARS
32%
3 STARS
43%
2 STARS
10%
1 STARS
0%
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Author

John Harvey
John Harvey
Author · 28 books

aka Jon Barton, William S. Brady (with Angus Wells), L.J. Coburn (with Laurence James), J.B. Dancer (with Angus Wells), John B. Harvey, William M. James (with Terry Harknett and Laurence James), Terry Lennox, John J. McLaglen (with Laurence James), James Mann, Thom Ryder, J.D. Sandon (with Angus Wells), Jon Hart John Harvey (born 21 December 1938 in London) is a British author of crime fiction most famous for his series of jazz-influenced Charlie Resnick novels, based in the City of Nottingham. Harvey has also published over 90 books under various names, and has worked on scripts for TV and radio. He also ran Slow Dancer Press from 1977 to 1999 publishing poetry. The first Resnick novel, Lonely Hearts, was published in 1989, and was named by The Times as one of the 100 Greatest Crime Novels of the Century. Harvey brought the series to an end in 1998 with Last Rites, though Resnick has since made peripheral appearances in Harvey's new Frank Elder series. The protagonist Elder is a retired detective who now lives, as Harvey briefly did, in Cornwall. The first novel in this series, Flesh and Blood, won Harvey the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger in 2004, an accolade many crime fiction critics thought long overdue. In 2007 he was awarded the Diamond Dagger for a Lifetime's Contribution to the genre. On 14th July 2009 he received an honorary degree (Doctor of Letters) from the University of Nottingham in recognition of his literary eminence and his associations with both the University and Nottingham (particularly in the Charlie Resnick novels). He is also a big Notts County fan.

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