Harry Rane Books In Publication Order
- The Barbed-Wire Kiss (2003)
- The Heartbreak Lounge (2005)
Crissa Stone Books In Publication Order
- Cold Shot to the Heart (2011)
- Kings of Midnight (2012)
- Shoot the Woman First (2013)
- The Devil’s Share (2015)
Standalone Novels In Publication Order
- Gone ’til November (2010)
- Some Die Nameless (2018)
- Heaven’s a Lie (2021)
Short Stories/Novellas In Publication Order
- Lovers in the Cold (2011)
Harry Rane Book Covers
Crissa Stone Book Covers
Standalone Novels Book Covers
Short Stories/Novellas Book Covers
Wallace Stroby Books Overview
The Barbed-Wire Kiss
Two years ago, Harry Rane took early retirement from the New Jersey State police after being shot in the line of duty. Now he lives one day at a time. It’s not much, but he gets by. Things change when Bobby Fox, an old childhood friend, calls for help. A small time dealer who’s taken one last chance, Bobby’s in over his head for $50,000 to Eddie Fallon, a local crime boss. Harry goes to see Fallon, hoping to work something out, but it’s hard to negotiate with a man like Fallon. The one thing Harry does learn is that he and Fallon have something in common Fallon’s wife is an ex girlfriend Harry hasn’t seen since he was eighteen, a girl who was pregnant with his child when she ran away. In this brooding, blistering debut set against the spare, atmospheric background of working class New Jersey, Harry gets caught between his past and his future, between justice and vengeance.
The Heartbreak Lounge
Ex state trooper Harry Rane, who first appeared in Wallace Stroby’s brilliant debut novel, The Barbed Wire Kiss, is at loose ends. Doing some investigative work for a friend’s firm just to keep himself busy, Harry meets Nikki Ellis, a woman desperate for help. Her ex, Johnny Harrow, was just released from prison after a seven year stretch for attempted murder. Nikki hasn’t spoken to him since he went down, but she knows what he’s capable of, and that he’ll be looking for her and for the baby she put up for adoption after Johnny went away. She knows it’s up to her to protect the child once again. And she’s afraid. As Harry finds out, she should be. Johnny is headed home to New Jersey to settle up with anyone who did him wrong while he was gone, including Nikki and his former employer, mobster Joey Alea. Then he’s planning to find his son and start a new life. Johnny starts at The Heartbreak Lounge, where Nikki was a dancer when she first met Johnny, and works his way through their old life, leaving a trail of blood and fear in his wake. Only Harry might be tough enough or reckless enough to help her. What happens next shows why the searing talent and explosive writing evident in The Barbed Wire Kiss was only the beginning, and why Wallace Stroby is destined to be one of the finest crime writers of a generation.
Cold Shot to the Heart
Just when you think that you can t be surprised anymore, a writer like Wallace Stroby ups the ante. Laura Lippman, author of I d Know You AnywhereCrissa Stone is a career criminal. A complete pro, she never works too close to her New York City home, rarely signs on with the same crew, and never rushes a job. These are the rules that have kept her from getting caught, from doing time. They re the rules her mentor and lover taught her, rules he didn t follow as closely as he should ve. Now he’s up for parole, and Crissa needs to come up with some real money real fast to help grease the wheels. Word is that there s an illegal card game set for less than a week from now. The take? As much as seven figures. Desperate, Crissa slaps a plan and a crew together. It s robbery, not murder. But when one of her crew loses his cool and they have to abandon the plan, she catches the attention of Eddie the Saint. A hit man recently released from prison, Eddie is no less of a pro than Crissa, and he could use the work, not to mention all that money. One of the most talented writers working in crime fiction today, Wallace Stroby has written a tight, propulsive story that will hold readers captive until well after all the crooks have fled the scene.
Gone ’til November
It’s late at night when Florida sheriff s deputy Sara Cross arrives at the scene of a roadside shooting along a deserted highway. Another deputy, Billy Flynn, her former partner, who also happens to be her former lover, has fatally shot a twenty two year old man during what started out as a routine traffic stop, and she s the first to arrive on the scene. He claims that the man pulled a gun, and that when he didn t respond to Billy s commands to drop it, Billy shot him. Billy is clearly upset, shaken up; Sarah sees the gun in the dead man s hand and the bag of illegal weapons in the trunk of his car and believes Billy s actions were justified. Up north in New Jersey, Mikey Mike runs a major drug operation and is tightening his hold on the competition, making a deal with a new supplier. Morgan, a middle aged enforcer for Mikey who s been in the life too long, would like to make one last score, walk away, and retire for good. Mike asks Morgan to head to Florida to find out what s holding up his new deal, and Morgan sees the job as a possibility for his last big payday. As more details of the roadside shooting emerge with Sara s investigation, and as Morgan follows the trail Mikey lays out for him, the two storylines begin to merge into a much darker, more menacing scenario than either Morgan or Sara imagined. Sara, in order to protect herself and her son, must follow the truth no matter where it leads. Acclaimed crime writer Wallace Stroby delivers a gripping novel that is part modern noir, part intense character study and totally compelling from start to finish.
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