James Hadley Chase - Selected works

Novelist, born in London, UK. He started the vogue for tough realism in gangster stories in the UK with his No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1939), the first of a number in similar vein.

James Hadley Chase is a pseudonym for British author Rene Brabazon Raymond (December 24, 1906 – February 6, 1985) who also wrote under the names James L. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), he decided to try his own hand as a mystery writer. It was a stage play in London's West End, was filmed in 1948 and in 1971 was remade by Robert Aldrich as The Grissom Gang. From this period dates Chase's unusual short story 'The Mirror in Room 22', in which he tried his hand outside the crime genre. "Otherwise I might have met with a serious accident - especially if I used an old-fashioned cut-throat."

Chase wrote most of his books using a dictionary of American slang, detailed maps, encyclopedias and reference books on the American underworld. Chase's London publisher Hamish Hamilton forced Chase to publish an apology in The Bookseller.

In several of Chase's stories the protagonist tries to find his place in the sun by committing a crime - an insurance fraud or a theft.

He was wildly popular in Asia and Africa.

Chase moved to France in 1956 and over to Switzerland in 1961, living a secluded life in Corseaux-Sur-Vevey north of Lake Geneva in since 1974 where he eventually died peacefully on February 6, 1985.

Selected works

1939 - No Orchids For Miss Blandish 1939 - The Dead Stay Dumb 1939 - He Won't Need It Now 1940 - Twelve Chinks And A Woman 1940 - Lady, Here's Your Wreath 1941 - Get A Load Of This 1941 - Miss Callaghan Comes To Grief 1944 - Miss Shumway Waves a Wand 1944 - Just The Way It Is 1945 - Eve 1946 - More Deadly Than The Male 1946 - I'll Get You For This 1946 - Make The Corpse Walk 1946 - Blonde's Requiem 1946 - Last Page 1947 - No Business Of Mine 1948 - The Flesh Of The Orchid 1948 - Trusted Like The Fox 1949 - You're Lonely When You're Dead 1949 - The Paw In The Bottle 1949 - You Never Know With Women 1950 - Figure It Out for Yourself 1950 - Lay Her Among The Lilies 1950 - Mallory 1951 - Why Pick On Me 1951 - Strictly For Cash 1951 - But A Short Time To Live 1951 - In A Vain Shadow 1952 - The Double Shuffle 1952 - The Wary Transgressor 1952 - The Fast Buck 1953 - This Way for a Shroud 1953 - I'll Bury My Dead 1953 - The Things Men Do 1953 - This Way For A Shroud 1954 - Mission To Venice 1954 - Safer Dead 1954 - The Sucker Punch 1954 - Tiger By The Tail 1955 - You've Got It Coming 1955 - Mission To Siena 1955 - The Pickup 1955 - Ruthless 1956 - There's Always A Price Tag 1956 - You Find Him, I'll Fix Him 1957 - The Guilty Are Afraid 1957 - Never Trust A Woman 1958 - Not Safe To Be Free 1958 - Hit And Run 1959 - Shock Treatment 1959 - The World In My Pocket 1960 - Come Easy, Go Easy 1960 - What's Better Than Money 1961 - A Lotus For Miss Quon 1961 - Just Another Sucker 1962 - I Would Rather Stay Poor 1962 - A Coffin From Hong Kong 1963 - Tell It To The Birds 1963 - One Bright Summer Morning 1964 - The Soft Centre 1965 - The Way the Cookie Crumbles 1965 - This Is For Real 1966 - You Have Yourself A Deal 1966 - Cade 1967 - Well Now, My Pretty 1967 - Have This One On Me 1968 - An Ear To The Ground 1968 - Believed Violent 1969 - The Whiff Of Money 1969 - The Vulture Is A Patient Bird 1970 - There's A Hippie On The Highway 1970 - Like A Hole In The Head 1971 - An Ace Up My Sleeve 1971 - Want To Stay Alive 1972 - Just A Matter Of Time 1972 - You're Dead Without Money 1973 - Have A Change Of Scene 1973 - Knock, Knock! Who's There 1974 - So What Happens To Me 1974 - Goldfish Have No Hiding Place 1974 - Three Of Spades 1975 - The Joker In The Pack 1975 - Believe This, You'll Believe Anything 1976 - Do Me A Favour, Drop Dead 1977 - I Hold The Four Aces 1977 - Meet Mark Girland 1977 - My Laugh Comes Last 1978 - Consider Yourself Dead 1979 - You Must Be Kidding 1979 - A Can Of Worms 1980 - You Can Say That Again 1980 - Try This One For Size 1981 - Hand Me A Fig Leaf 1982 - Have A Nice Night 1982 - We'll Share A Double Funeral 1983 - Not My Thing 1984 - Meet Helga Rolfe 1984 - Hit Them Where It Hurts

James Hadley Chase Novels Plot Outline

Why Pick On Me?

Milly Lawes a Piccadilly streetwalker, found a strange ring in her room one day. so did the Secret Service - and so before very long, did Martin Corridon, ex-Commando, ex-MI5, ex-ethics of any kind...Corridon didn't really want to know, didn't want to work with the service again - but Milly had been a sort of friend, and the thought of her cut throat and blood soaked bed was enough to send him off on a trail of sobotage and murder.

Most Memorable Quotes:

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‘You can be a bastard at times, can’t you?’ Corridon said, and laughed.