Treasure Hunt: Cheap Book Style

Earlier this year—I’m thinking March—I stumbled across a batch of bargain books at a local department store. They primarily consisted of mass market paperbacks published by Leisure. I searched through the stacks like it was Christmas and went away with several new titles. Since then, every time I go to this particular store, I have to make a pass by the rack to see if there are any new titles—a search that has proven fruitless until a few weeks ago.

It was Sunday, three weeks ago, my girl and I were headed to the movie house when we stopped at this particular store for something or other. I made my usual rounds, and to my surprise there was an even larger rack filled to near bursting with new titles. Each priced at $2.99. Needless to say we missed our movie as I frantically rummaged through the stacks of books and I found a few treasures—well, at least a few pretty cool titles.

I found a couple Hard Case Crime titles I’m missing: Straight Cut by Madison Smartt Bell and The Vengeful Virgin by Gil Brewer, an HCC title none of my local bookstores ever ordered. I also found a title I nearly purchased when it was in my local B&N, but since it was out around the holidays last year I was strapped for personal book spending monies—damn holidays! The title: Causes Unknown by Leslie Horvitz. I’ve actually already read this one, and posted a review for it—go Here to read it.

I had to limit myself to three titles, which was not an easy proposition because there were so many. They had thrillers—including David Morrell’s Creepers. A title I already have, but can you have too many copies of anything Morrell wrote? They had horror—Douglas Clegg, Jack Ketchum, Graham Masterton. They had Westerns, mysteries—Andrew Coburn, Brian Pinkerton, Jeff Buick, and so many more.

One of the titles I put back was Broken Trust by William P. Wood. I’ve never read Wood, but as the weeks passed, far to quickly, I kept thinking about that title and wishing I had purchased it. So this past Sunday afternoon—a delightfully rainy day—we went back, under the guise of seeing a movie in the theater next door, and I picked up a copy of Broken Trust. It better be good, because we ended up skipping out on the movie again. And if it is, they also had a copy of Wood's Rampage that I can pick up next week. If it's still there.