Cut Me In

Wheeling-and-dealing in a Manhattan literary agency drives this reissue, an ultrasmooth 1954 crime novel from Salvatore Lombino (1926–2005), better known today by two of his pen names, Evan Hunter (The Blackboard Jungle) and Ed McBain (Cop Hater and many other 87th Precinct novels). The firm of Gilbert and Blake wants to cut in on movie money being dangled in front of a client, but one of the firm’s partners, Del Gilbert, lies shot dead on his office floor—“three holes had very carelessly been left in his face.” It’s up to the firm’s other partner, fiction-peddler Josh Blake, to juggle the deal, sweat through the sweltering summer heat while finding corpses faster than the cops, and mix it up with a few even hotter babes. Originally published under the pseudonym Hunt Collins, this period classic features a great whodunit clue. Rounding out the package is “Now Die in It,” a McBain story that’s been lost for more than half a century. [em](Jan.) [/em]