Books published by West 26th Street Press

Alexandra Roeg was an artist, and one night she wanted to create a masterpiece by cutting the heart out of the man who raped her.  Proving the case should be easy, she told Detective Leo Banks.  Find the video recording made by a second man, and he would have all the proof anyone would need.For Banks, the attack brought to mind Donna Sanger, an eighteen year girl dead of an overdose five years ago after being lured into the porn trade by a Johnny Perbix, a recording industry mogul turned land developer.  Unable to save Donna Sanger, Banks was determined to get justice for Alexandra Roeg—especially when he learned that her ex-husband worked for Perbix, the man who turned out Donna Sanger.  No stranger to crime and tragedy, the one thing Banks hadn’t counted on was how much he needed to trust somebody.  And worse, the cost of making the wrong choice.BENEDICTION winds through the back rooms and the sometimes bleak, sometimes trendy streets of Rozette, Montana, where hope and vengeance simmer into a poisonous brew.

Even in a small town, street rules apply. That means you handcuff everybody. Even the dead and dying. When two cops spend hour after hour together on the street, policing the bleak hours between midnight and dawn of a Montana winter, they live by street rules. They also get to know things about each other. Sometimes, they know more about their partner than about themselves. Or think they do. Often, they become lifelong friends, until something happens. And something always happens in those bleak hours.How do you treat a friend who kills a man to save your life? Rescues you, the world proclaims, from a situation that you had under control? And if you are that friend, how do you deal with somehow who is ungrateful for the favor? How do you deal with the judgment that you made a foolish mistake, and someone else had to pick up the tab so that you could go home to your family? So that he could go home to a stark room and his memories of a war the whole country wants to forget?How do you keep going on the street—and at home—after the daytime hours turn bleak, too?

When Leo Banks was a young man, he fell hard for a woman named Sarah.  Yet when Banks joined the navy during the Vietnam War, Sarah left him to marry his best friend, Gerry Heyman.  Heyman became a doctor and settled with Sarah in Mauvaisterre, Illinois, his childhood hometown near St. Louis.  He and Sarah had two kids, and life was good, just what both believed that they had always wanted.  After the navy, Banks found his way by freight train to Rozette, Montana.  Against all apparent odds, he became a police officer, completed a career, and retired.  Gerry and Sarah Heyman were long out of his life, until the day they passed through town while on a vacation trip to Glacier Park.Would Banks, Heyman asks, be willing to come to Mauvaisterre and help him investigate a murder that happened nearly fifty years ago?  Heyman is convinced that an innocent man, a man with diminished mental capacity, was wrongly convicted.  Banks is not interested, but things change not long afterward, when he gets word from Sarah that Gerry is dead.  She suspects murder and a connection to his interest in the old crime.  This changes everything and Banks is soon entangled with murder, old and new, a rich man who knows no way but his own, and a lover whom he had long believed gone from his life forever.

Israeli espionage agent Eytan Eckstein and his team set out to eliminate master terrorist Amar Kamil in Germany, but tragically kill the wrong man.  In a brutal hunt across the globe, Kamil turns the tables on Eckstein, eliminating the team one-by-one as he heads for Jerusalem in a plot to assassinate the Israeli Prime Minister.

Israeli Military Intelligence agents Eytan Eckstein and Benni Baum are summoned once more to undertake a mission that could be their last.  A defecting Czech spy claims to know the identity of a mole within Israel’s top secret nuclear program, but he has fled to Africa and will only turn over the information if a string of his demands are met.  Thus begins “Operation Sorcerer,” a quest to extricate the Czech spy, rescue a throng of desperate refugees, and survive the onslaught of Africa warlords determined to destroy the Israeli heroes.Steven Hartov was born in the United States and educated at Boston University.  After serving in the U.S. Military Sealift Command, he emigrated to Israel and served in the Israel Defense Forces parachute corps and Military Intelligence special operations.  He is the author of the espionage trilogy, “The Heat of Ramadan,” “The Nylon Hand of God,” and “The Devil’s Shepherd,” and co-author of the New York Times best seller “In the Company of Heroes” and “The Night Stalkers.”  For six years, Hartov helmed “Special Operations Report” as Editor-in-Chief.  He currently serves as a Task Force commander in the New York Guard and is writing a new novel.Readers held in suspense throughout this galloping plot will end with their nails in their mouths, awaiting the next installment. -Kirkus ReviewsA superb thriller with brains and heart. . . . an electrifying and brilliantly paced book. -Detroit Free PressBursting at the seams with action and intrigue, Hartov’s thriller also boasts great characters… “The Devil’s Shepherd” mixes lessons in world politics with martial arts know-how and intelligence savvy so adroitly that readers will be enjoying themselves too much to realize they may have learned something. -Missouri Journal Sentinael

Israeli Military Intelligence agents Eytan Eckstein and Benni Baum are about to conclude a delicate prisoner swap between Israel and her nemesis, Iran.  But when a suicide bombing at the Israeli embassy in New York throws the plan into chaos, they discover the involvement of Martina Klump, a vicious German terrorist who has an old score to settle with Baum.  If Eckstein and Baum can’t stop her, Klump will not only thwart the prisoner swap, but ignite an all-out war between Israel and Iran.Steven Hartov was born in the United States and educated at Boston University.  After serving in the U.S. Military Sealift Command, he emigrated to Israel and served in the Israel Defense Forces parachute corps and Military Intelligence special operations.  He is the author of the espionage trilogy, “The Heat of Ramadan,” “The Nylon Hand of God,” and “The Devil’s Shepherd,” and co-author of the New York Times best seller “In the Company of Heroes” and “The Night Stalkers.”  For six years, Hartov helmed “Special Operations Report” as Editor-in-Chief.  He currently serves as a Task Force commander in the New York Guard and is writing a new novel.  A superior thriller, dark and exciting. . . . The finest sort of espionage thriller.- Publishers WeeklySuspenseful action and twisty plotting. . . . a fine beat-the-devil tale.-Kirkus ReviewsThe gripping take, full of twists and turns, rockets from New York to Washington, D.C., to Casablanca and thence to the Algerian Sahara.  It’s climax is a hair-raiser.-Lake Oswego Review

Flea Markets are considered one of the most democratic institutions around. A man wants to sell something, he pays a small fee for a space in an outdoor parking lot or a farmer's field, brings his own table, puts out his wares and he's in business . . . this is frontier capitalism.This guide is for all collectors and dealers who want to gain access to the universe of antiques and collectibles sold at flea markets, antique malls, or on the Internet. Author Barry Berg discusses what it really means to sell and buy in this arena. He provides tips on making the most of your efforts whether you are a collector or dealer. This handy resource guide gives advice and useful tips to beginners wanting to start a collection or a business dealing with collectibles.This book is a "must" for all who enjoy spending hours on end browsing the flea markets and finding those wonderful treasures.

While teaching writing at an artists colony in Woodstock, mystery editor Claire Rawlings gets some bad vibes from the writers there. And things only get worse when she finds the colony's resident beauty dead in the bathtub.

Editor and sleuth Claire Rawlings and her 12-year-old sidekick Meredith visit a cozy New England inn where murder is an unwanted guest.                 

New York mystery editor Claire Rawlings spends her days scrutinizing the motives and methods of fictitious criminals--but her precocious thirteen-year-old friend Meredith Lawrence has a keen eye for the cold, hard facts of crime.  So when Meredith comes to New York to visit, the two mystery buffs put their heads together to sleuth out the truth about a real-life murder. When Claire's star author, the ferociously flirtatious Blanche Dubois, is found dead after eating a poisoned apple, there's no shortage of suspects.  Many who knew her were jealous of her success--and just as many were put off by her haughty, demanding demeanor.  With the help of a city detective, Claire and Meredith question Blanche's friends, colleagues, and relatives--and discover that even in the Big Apple, the world of murder is a very small world indeed."Who Killed Blanche Dubois is an absolutely delightful and wonderfully clued story ... captures the reader's imagination." -- Romantic Times, November 1999"Who Killed Blanche Dubois? is the work of a seasoned professional and it shows... pure entertainment at its best...." -- Geraldine Galentree, Remember the Alabi

"Watson, do you believe in ghosts?"With this question, Sherlock Holmes shatters the calm of a quiet evening in their London flat and, with Dr. John Watson at his side, embarks upon a particularly strange case. Holmes has received a request for aid from Lord Charles Cary, whose family is seemingly being threatened by ghosts in and around the family manor. The manor is Torre Abbey, a twelfth-century monastery in Torquay, Devon, and it has a long history of hauntings. While skeptical of the supernatural, Holmes does believe that the Cary family is in danger-a belief which proves to be horrifyingly accurate when, shortly after they arrive at Torre Abbey, a household member dies suddenly, mysteriously, and seemingly of fright. As strange sightings and threatening apparitions become almost commonplace, Holmes must uncover the secrets of the haunted abbey and the family that lives there if he is to have any hope of protecting the living and avenging the dead. In a case that taxes his wits, and seems beyond the reach of his usual methods, Holmes must grapple with his most deadly and unforgiving foe.

It’s the year 1889, and a shrewd Yankee ice merchant, Nicolas Van Horne, has been carving out a profitable side-business. Deep in his ship’s icy hold, dozens of human cadavers lie between the huge blocks of ice. On this delivery, his first to Galveston’s new Medical School, Nicolas makes the ghastly discovery that he’s been trafficking in murdered boys. Only with the help of Renée Keiller, Galveston’s lovely lady scientist, will Nicolas eventually solve the puzzle his ice holds . . . but first he must overcome his personal demon of morphine addiction, and become inextricably entangled in Renée’s experiments on the most dreaded killer of the time, Yellow Fever.Paul Boor, M.D., is a scientist and professor at Galveston’s medical school, the oldest west of the Mississippi. His first novel, BLOOD NOTES, was a modern biomedical thriller. In THE ICE MERCHANT, Dr. Boor explores the history of the body trade, while plumbing the depths of the human frailties of those devoted to scientific discovery.