A Moment to Prey

Lily knew what she wanted, and that was a man who would
take her away from the dirt road and one-room country shack she called home.
Lily was different than the other swamp folks, different and smarter. She was
looking not only to get out but for something, and it was clear that she'd do
anything to get whatever that might be, including commit murder. It was
impossible to avoid her, her sleepy eyes that made it seem that she'd just
crawled out of a warm bed, her full lips and lush body. An insurance
investigator is sent by his company from St. Louis to find out the truth about a
hundred thousand dollar scam; he discovers the truth, all right, but Lily makes
him concentrate on something altogether different.
Harry Whittington was the king of the paperback
originals. He wrote mysteries, westerns, romance and adventure novels. Despite
his prolific output, Whittington's work was always of the highest quality.
Celebrated and perhaps appreciated most in France, Whittington was lionized by
the Magazine Literaire, in Paris: "For the past twenty-five years," they
wrote, "we in France have considered Harry Whittington one of the masters of
the roman noir in the second generation-after Hammett, Chandler,
Cain."

***
"Whittington does some of the best sheer story-telling
since the greatest days of the detective pulps."
-Anthony Boucher, New York Times
"Whittington's writing is crisp, with a good deal of
emotional impact."
-Bill Pronzini