Amazon
Category:
Action/Thriller
ISBN-10: 0615609236
Type: Fiction
ISBN-13: 9780615609232
GANGSTERS & GUNMOLLS
It was the 1930s and America was locked in the grip of the Great Depression. Gangsters controlled the major cities while outlaws roamed the rural back country. It was a time of Speak Easy gin-joints, Tommy-guns, fast cars and even faster dames. This is the world of New York based Private Investigator Rick Ruby, a world he is all too familiar with. From the back alleys of Gotham to the gold laden boulevards of Hollywood, Ruby is the shamus with a nose for trouble and an insatiable appetite for justice. So if you’ve got a taste for hot lead and knuckle sandwiches, tug your cuffs, adjust your fedora and light up a Lucky, a brand new pulp detective is coming your way. Created by pulp masters, Bobby Nash & Sean Taylor, Rick Ruby echoes the tales of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe while offering up his own brand of two-fisted action. Joined by fellow pulp smiths Andrew Salmon & William Patrick Maynard, these modern scribes of purple prose present a quartet of tales to delight any true lover of private eye fiction.
Excerpt
The woman’s accent was just German enough to get his attention, all dripping with sexy gutturals and thick vowels, just exotic enough to trick a man’s ears into thinking he was having a drink with Marlene Dietrich instead of some two-bit nightclub singer in a no-account New York dive like Belle’s. But the comparison stopped cold at the woman’s voice. She was attractive, of course, but lacked the sex appeal that would have brought sell-out crowds to the local bijou. Her skin was pale and almost sickly, and her figure—while a far sight better than that of the average woman with a nice apartment and radio in her living room—well, it was never going to get her silhouette painted on a playbill. But her eyes, her dark eyes that threatened to go solid black in just the right light, those were something special, and it was those eyes that had convinced him to listen to her story in the first place.
“So listen, honey,” he said, tapping a Camel from a pack of cigarettes then slipping it back inside his coat pocket.
“Gerta,” she said.
“Right. Gerta Stein. You said that.” He smiled and nodded as he lit the Camel. “So, what’s all this noise about your uncle?”
She shifted her weight in her seat, and he pretended to be gentleman enough not to overtly notice the way her dress slipped off the side of her thigh. “I think he’s in trouble, Mr. Ruby. I think he’s in the kind of trouble could get him killed.”
“What kind of trouble is that, honey?”
“My Uncle Oskar, he’s a scientist, a chemist who works on weapons development. Only, he’s not very happy with the direction our government has taken, and he’s looking for an opportunity to seek sanctuary here in your United States.”
“Sounds like a smart man.”
“He’s very smart, Mr. Ruby.” There went those legs again, uncrossing and then stacking one on top of the other in the opposite manner. Rick didn’t pretend as well this time. Still, she either didn’t notice or didn’t seem to mind. “He is in New York with a group of scientists and officials for some kind of conference, and he’s staying at the Grand Hotel.”
“Nice place. Ritzy. Expensive.”
“Yes. The Nazis spare no expense to keep their war makers pliable and complacent, Mr. Ruby.”
He stopped her by raising his index finger between them.
“If I’m going to help you, honey,” he said, intentionally not watching the swing of her legs, “then we’re going to have to get one thing straight. My friends call me Rick. Only the bankers, cops, and jealous boyfriends call me Mr. Ruby. Okay?”
“Then I’d prefer you call me Gerta as well.”
“Sure thing, honey.” He smiled. “So, Gerta, tell me more about your Uncle Oskar.”
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