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Ray Corson came to Hollywood to be a screenwriter, not hired muscle. But when a beautiful girl with a purse full of cash asks for your help, how can you say no? So Corson agrees to protect starlet Rebecca LaFontaine from a vengeful mobster — but what he doesn’t realize is that he’ll have to join the Mob to do it.

• Also nominated for the Anthony Award for Best Cover Art of the Year
• Highly praised author has published novels in hardcover with Henry Holt and Little Brown
• George Pelecanos on FADE TO BLONDE: "The term Chandleresque is overused, but this book...came as close as any I've read to replicating the master's style...This is a superior, smart, exciting crime novel."
• Publishers Weekly on FADE TO BLONDE: "A hard-boiled whodunit sure to thrill fans of such Golden Age masters as James M. Cain...Deftly balances terse yet tender introspection with hard-hitting physical action...The convincingly understated, witty repartee between guy and gal—and their gangster pals—prevents the book from descending, for even a paragraph, into period pulp parody. They do write ’em like they used to."
• January Magazine on FADE TO BLONDE: "Sharp, savvy, and unapologetically raunchy...this taut, hard novel is a winner."

Also available in an audiobook edition...

Fade to Blonde
by Max Phillips
Narrator: Gordon Mackenzie
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Sample Chapter 1: Dowload mp3

"A rip-roaring page-turner."

— New York Newsday

"Masterfully told."

— The Seattle Times

"The author has the eye and the ear and the cojones to keep pace with all this fond brutality."

— The New Yorker

"A dark, dangerous style."

— The New York Times

"Inventive, vividly written...highly entertaining."

— Kirkus Reviews

"It's been said that FADE TO BLONDE could have been a Gold Medal novel. It certainly could have. It's easily one of the best books I've read this year."

— James Reasoner, author of TEXAS WIND

"Phillips has recreated the universe of Raymond Chandler with utter believability...The novel moves along with punchy, straightforward, sexy prose, and doesn't lack for wit."

— Neal Pollack, author of NEVER MIND THE POLLACKS