Wide-ranging in setting and tone, yet linked by their sense of irony and reverence for the past, these 13 short stories reflect in miniature the pseudonymous Trevanian's chameleonic career as a genre-defying author of popular fiction (Shibumi; Incident at Twenty-Mile). Most of the tales take place in pre- and post-WWII urban environments, most notably the title story, which features a lonely girl dressed up like June Allyson and a gentlemanly stalker who imitates Jimmy Stewart and W.C. Fields. Trevanian tells the story twice, the first version introducing the volume, the second ending it; each has a different denouement, but both are tragic. A similar period mustiness permeates "Snatch Off Your Cap, Kid!"Aan ode to the tramps and hobos of bygone days; "After Hours at Rick's," an evocation of the timeless, edgy ennui of last call at a pick-up bar; and "The Sacking of Miss Plimsoll," the story of an unusual relationship between a bestselling author and his literary secretary. Basque country serves as the backdrop for two of Trevanian's tales: a young couple come together in a light romantic farce entitled "The Engine of Fate," and a village idiot improves his lot in life by pretending that he has a fortune to bequeath in "That Fox-of-a-Be?at." The author ventures even farther afield with "Easter Story," set in ancient Rome and detailing Pontius Pilate's first meeting with Jesus, and with a retelling of the wise and witty Onondaga creation parable "How the Animals Got Their Voices." Though he employs a number of hoary devices to achieve his effects, Trevanian can be an engaging storyteller, with a knack for getting inside his characters' heads.

Legendary writer Trevanian brings readers his most personal novel yet: a funny, deeply felt, often touching autobiographical novel destined to become a classic American coming-of-age story.The place is Albany, New York. The year is 1936. Six-year-old Jean-Luc LaPointe, his little sister, and their spirited but vulnerable young mother have been abandoned--again--by his father, a charmer and a con artist. With no money and no family willing to take them in, the LaPointes manage to create a fragile nest at 238 North Pearl Street. For the next eight years, through the Great Depression and Second World War, they live in the heart of the Irish slum, with its ward heelers, unemployment, and grinding poverty. As Jean-Luc discovers, it's a neighborhood of "crazyladies": Miss Cox, the feared and ridiculed teacher who ignites his imagination; Mrs. Kane, who runs a beauty parlor/fortune-telling salon in the back of her husband's grocery store; Mrs. Meehan, the desperate, harried...

A First-Rate Thriller from a Legendary MasterJonathan Hemlock, the art professor and mercenary who first excited readers with his daring exploits in The Eiger Sanction, returns in an even more masterful adventure in The Loo Sanction, Trevanian's second thrilling spy novel. Hemlock has gone to England to rest, but his vacation is interrupted when the head of British Intelligence needs his highly skilled services. Jonathan must take over the mission of an agent whose murder was so bizarre and terrifying that no other agent was willing to replace him.His task: to locate a set of secretly made films that incriminate a number of high-ranking British officials. His target: a top underworld figure who delights in debauchery and torture. Facing this threat, Jonathan is drawn into a labyrinthine network of intrigue and depravity. As all the pieces in the dangerous puzzle begin to come together, Jonathan is trapped, almost fatally drugged, and forced...

Down in the main, Montreal’s teeming underworld, the dark streets echo with cries in a dozen languages, with the swift footsteps of thieves, with the murmurs of women of pleasure. To the people of the Main, Lieutenant Claude LaPointe is judge and jury, father confessor and avenging angel. And when cold-blooded murder invades LaPointe’s territory, it means the beginning of another gripping tale of death and danger, of action and mystery, by the incomparable Trevanian.

Jonathan Hemlock lives in a renovated Gothic church on Long Island. He is an art professor, a mountain climber, and a mercenary, performing assassinations (i.e., sanctions) for money to augment his black-market art collection. Now Hemlock is being tricked into a hazardous assignment that involves an attempt to scale one of the most treacherous mountain peaks in the Swiss Alps, the Eiger. In a breathtakingly suspenseful story that is part thriller and part satire, the author traces Hemlock’s spine-tingling adventures, introducing a cast of intriguing characters—villains, traitors, beautiful women—into the highly charged atmosphere of danger. The accumulating threads of suspicion, accusation, and evidence gradually knit themselves into a bizarre and death-defying climax in this exciting, entertaining novel that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the last absorbing page.

In the quiet Basque countryside in 1914, Jean-Marc Montjean, a handsome young doctor, is bewitched by the seductive, beautiful Katya. He is driven to know everything about her. He is devastated by the unspeakable secret horror buried in her past."A most exquisite, elegant, ingenious thriller." -- The New York Daily News"A tour de force . . . A story that explores meticulously some of the darker corners of the human soul." -- The Washington PostFrom the Paperback edition.