Crang Plays The Ace

Cause a "poker face" ain’t just a song by Lady Gaga. Crang is a criminal lawyer. He loves jazz, old movies, Polish vodka, his Volkswagen convertible, and his girlfriend Annie, not necessarily in that order. A wise-cracking WASP with a moral code that owes little to the Law Society of Upper Canada, Crang is equally quick with his lip and fists, but he can tell a fish fork from a pair of brass knuckles when he has to. The clients who come to Crang’s second-floor walk-up office on Toronto’s Queen Street strip – street punks, two bit robbers, and small-time scam artists – are usually guilty. Crang likes it that way. Mostly he gets them off and they’re grateful. So when Matthew Wansborough, wealthy financier and scion of a fine old family, comes to Crang with the novel problem that his $300,000 investment in Ace Disposal Services is too profitable, Crang is puzzled. Wansborough isn’t Crang’s usual kind of client and Ace isn’t Wansborough’s usual kind of blue-chip operation. Crang’s unorthodox investigation of Ace reveals that it’s a dirty player in a dirty business, run by men who oil the wheels of commerce with kickbacks, fraud, muscle – and murder. Mystery and comedy mix in this entertaining novel, written with the in-depth knowledge of the legal scene and the easygoing style that have made bestsellers of Batten’s previous books. Once readers have made the acquaintance of Crang, they will be eager to read of his future cases in what promises to be a long and successful series.

“Like a fine wine, the [Crang] series — and its protagonist — have aged well.” — The Toronto Star “Not to be missed.” — The Globe and Mail Jack Batten's hard-boiled Crang series returns with this four-book bundle, including the latest Crang mystery, 2016's Keeper of the Flame! Includes:Crang Plays the Ace Straight No Chaser Take Five Keeper of the Flame

The smart-talking, wise-cracking, jazz-loving criminal lawyer has got a taste for straight vodka and a nose for trouble. No one could ever accuse Crang of being a superhero, but with his usual mixture of innate cool and naive enthusiasm he brings the villains to justice. This 6-book bundle includes: Crang Plays the Ace Crang Mystery #1 Straight No Chaser Crang Mystery #2 Riviera Blues Crang Mystery #3 Blood Count Crang Mystery #4 Take Five Crang Mystery #5 Keeper of the Flame Crang Mystery #6 “Like a fine wine, the [Crang] series — and its protagonist — have aged well.” The Toronto Star

This special three-book bundle contains all three novel’s in Jack Batten’s Crang series. Acclaimed Jack Batten is one of Canada’s foremost crime fiction experts, and it shows in this entertaining and relentlessly witty series about the exploits of a hard-living, vodka- and jazz-loving criminal lawyer who deals with both the lives of the rich and the down-and-out on the streets and in the mansions of Canada’s largest city. Includes Crang Plays the Ace Straight No Chaser Take Five

Mayhem, Murder and Mystery...Crang is on the case. Mystery and comedy mix in this entertaining novel, written with the in-depth knowledge of the legal scene and the easygoing style that have made bestsellers of Batten's previous books.

Thirteen Canadian writers from the late nineteenth century to today find intrigue, mystery, and terror in the familiar streets and places of Toronto.

White provides the most comprehensive scholarly compilation of fictional work of legal suspense in existence. Primarily a bibliography of novels, it also annotates plays, scripts for film and television, novelizations, and short-story collections about lawyers and the law. The idea behind the principal of selection is to disdain labels that reduce the variety of the legal thriller to a subgenre of mystery fiction. Novels that range from suspense thrillers through science fiction to the philosophical novel are included if justice is thematically important. It is therefore an eclectic reference source beyond a compilation of books about lawyers as protagonists. Its biographical and scholarly information about authors, major and minor, and their novels or works is traditionally encyclopedic and objective regardless of whether the work has been genre-defined, or worse—deified as a classic or denigrated as a bestseller. Many novels included are long out of print, but historically interesting for their contribution to the lineage of the courtroom drama, showing that the history of the legal thriller is one of the major branches of modern literature since the Age of Reason. The criterion of justice denoted moves beyond the fact of lawyers and courtrooms to select seminal novels like Robert Travers' Anatomy of a Murder as well as the romantic potboiler. Among the more than 2,000 works are the Perry Mason novels of Erle Stanley Gardner, John Mortimer's Rumpole series, along with a staple of fiction by major authors of the genre like John Lescroart, Lisa Scottoline, Margaret Maron, Scott Turow, and John Grisham. There are also individual works by Shakespeare, Goethe, Kafka, Camus, and Twain delineating humanity's obsession with the law as its shining prop of civilization and, alternative, béte-noire of the common individual caught up in its maw. The appendices include comments by lawyer-novelist Michael A. Kahn, a historical introduction to the legal thriller, craft notes by writers and prominent trial lawyers responding to author and lawyer questionnaires, bibliography of critical sources and articles, series characters, and the legal terminology found in courtroom dramas and novels. An essential reference tool for scholars, researchers as well as the occasional reader of legal thrillers.

Cause a "poker face" ain't just a song by Lady Gaga. Crang is a criminal lawyer. He loves jazz, old movies, Polish vodka, his Volkswagen convertible, and his girlfriend Annie, not necessarily in that order. A wise-cracking WASP with a moral code that owes little to the Law Society of Upper Canada, Crang is equally quick with his lip and fists, but he can tell a fish fork from a pair of brass knuckles when he has to. The clients who come to Crang's second-floor walk-up office on Toronto's Queen Street strip - street punks, two bit robbers, and small-time scam artists - are usually guilty. Crang likes it that way. Mostly he gets them off and they're grateful. So when Matthew Wansborough, wealthy financier and scion of a fine old family, comes to Crang with the novel problem that his $300,000 investment in Ace Disposal Services is too profitable, Crang is puzzled. Wansborough isn't Crang's usual kind of client and Ace isn't Wansborough's usual kind of blue-chip operation. Crang's unorthodox investigation of Ace reveals that it's a dirty player in a dirty business, run by men who oil the wheels of commerce with kickbacks, fraud, muscle - and murder. Mystery and comedy mix in this entertaining novel, written with the in-depth knowledge of the legal scene and the easygoing style that have made bestsellers of Batten's previous books. Once readers have made the acquaintance of Crang, they will be eager to read of his future cases in what promises to be a long and successful series.