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UNE LANCE
250pages. in12. Broché. Etat Correct / Usures d'usage -Couvertures et Dos défraichis (coins émoussés, petites usures et pliures, micro-déchirures) voir photo -Inté Bien, propre, jauni, légèrement corné. Ok lecture.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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55 people want to read
About the author
Clark Howard
110 books29 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Born in Ripley, Tennessee in 1932, Clark Howard is one of the most honored mystery writers in America and has long been a favorite of readers of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and numerous other publications.
A professional writer for over 40 years, he has written sixteen novels, six books of non-fiction, and has two published collections of short stories, in addition to more than 200 uncollected short stories. While versed in many genres, he is best known for his crime fiction and mystery stories which have won the prestigious Edgar Alan Poe Award, five Ellery Queen Readers Award, the Derringer Award, and have been nominated for the Anthony, Shamus and Spur Awards.
His stories have been adapted for film (The Big Town was based on his novel THE ARM) and television, which included the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series. His original screen play Last of the Good Guys was a featured Movie of the Week on CBS, and his non-fiction book SIX AGAINST THE ROCK was also a television movie.
His work has been translated into numerous languages and he has a large following of faithful readers in several countries, particularly in China and Japan where his writing appears regularly.
A ward of Cook County by age 12, Clark Howard grew up on the lower West Side of Chicago, living in a succession of foster homes, from which he habitually ran away. During this period, he was an amateur boxer for the Midwest Athletic Club on the West Side. But soon, in his mid teens, he became a confirmed juvenile delinquent and was eventually sent to a reformatory. Later he was allowed go live with his maternal grandmother in a small town near Memphis, Tennessee.
He discovered two new worlds in the South of the late 1940s — old time Negro jazz music and ‘heads up’ crap shooting, the latter of which later became the subject of THE ARM, his first novel.
He enlisted in the Marine Corps at 17 and served as a rocket launcher gunner in the Punchbowl in Korea. He was one of eight survivors in a platoon that survived the battle of the high ground north of the Punchbowl. He was discharged from the marines at age 20.
He entered journalism school at Northwestern University in Chicago under the GI Bill, but left after one semester when his writing was judged by his professor as being “undisciplined and of no commercial value.” Unknown to the professor, he had already sold two short stories to New York magazines.
Clark Howard now makes his home in Palm Springs, California. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, the Author’s Guild, and Writers Guild of America.
He was awarded a Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars in January 2011 in recognition for his contributions to literature, particularly the genre of American short stories.
Born in Ripley, Tennessee in 1932, Clark Howard is one of the most honored mystery writers in America and has long been a favorite of readers of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and numerous other publications.
A professional writer for over 40 years, he has written sixteen novels, six books of non-fiction, and has two published collections of short stories, in addition to more than 200 uncollected short stories. While versed in many genres, he is best known for his crime fiction and mystery stories which have won the prestigious Edgar Alan Poe Award, five Ellery Queen Readers Award, the Derringer Award, and have been nominated for the Anthony, Shamus and Spur Awards.
His stories have been adapted for film (The Big Town was based on his novel THE ARM) and television, which included the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series. His original screen play Last of the Good Guys was a featured Movie of the Week on CBS, and his non-fiction book SIX AGAINST THE ROCK was also a television movie.
His work has been translated into numerous languages and he has a large following of faithful readers in several countries, particularly in China and Japan where his writing appears regularly.
A ward of Cook County by age 12, Clark Howard grew up on the lower West Side of Chicago, living in a succession of foster homes, from which he habitually ran away. During this period, he was an amateur boxer for the Midwest Athletic Club on the West Side. But soon, in his mid teens, he became a confirmed juvenile delinquent and was eventually sent to a reformatory. Later he was allowed go live with his maternal grandmother in a small town near Memphis, Tennessee.
He discovered two new worlds in the South of the late 1940s — old time Negro jazz music and ‘heads up’ crap shooting, the latter of which later became the subject of THE ARM, his first novel.
He enlisted in the Marine Corps at 17 and served as a rocket launcher gunner in the Punchbowl in Korea. He was one of eight survivors in a platoon that survived the battle of the high ground north of the Punchbowl. He was discharged from the marines at age 20.
He entered journalism school at Northwestern University in Chicago under the GI Bill, but left after one semester when his writing was judged by his professor as being “undisciplined and of no commercial value.” Unknown to the professor, he had already sold two short stories to New York magazines.
Clark Howard now makes his home in Palm Springs, California. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, the Author’s Guild, and Writers Guild of America.
He was awarded a Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars in January 2011 in recognition for his contributions to literature, particularly the genre of American short stories.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 18, 2025
Clark Howard entitled his 1967 dark crime thriller as simply “The Arm,” in homage to the professional throwers known as Arms. If you don’t know much about shooting craps, Howard doesn’t exactly teach you how to play. That usually comes the hard way – with practice. But he offers the reader all the excitement of the risks and the gambling and the hubris that are common to all games of chance.
“The Arm” is the story of the quick rise and fall of the greatest Arm Chicago had ever known: Cully, who comes out of the backwater town of Evansville on a Greyhound bus and a contact for Ferguson who’ll set him up with games. Cully has been taught be the best and intuitively knows the odds on every throw. But there are some nights the Arm is magic and cannot fail. Ferguson draws a hard bargain. You use out dice (and thus our reputation), play our assigned games six days a week, we will stake you, and we get seventy percent of the winnings. She tells him: “you use our money and carry our dice. Normally you’ll shoot with whatever dice are in a game when you get there, but occasionally somebody will call for new dice. When that happens you can toss in our dice; but don’t ever put any dice except ours into a game. We know our dice are straight, we can’t guarantee any others. And if you ever get caught with loaded dice in this town, you’ll feel like Jesus on Good Friday. Do you understand?”
Cully is at one the proverbial hayseed out of his element in the glare of the bright lights and the big city. “Hooker had told him, last thing before he boarded the bus, “It’s a fast town, kid, too fast for most of our kind. But I made it twenty years ago, and I think you can make it now. Only thing is, keep one foot on the bank for awhile. Don’t jump in with both feet until you’re sure you can stand the current, get me?”
He also quickly realizes he has the best arm – even better than the professionals he meets there and becomes the king shark of sharks preying upon the salesmen and other goons who are such easy marks to someone who can instantly calculate the odds of and throw. With success comes confidence and swagger and you know that will eventually be his downfall.
His downfall will also come in the form of another gambler’s wife, one Lorry Ann, a stripper who he can’t take his eyes off and fantasies about day and night, particularly when she tells him to break her husband’s game, meaning bankrupt the game. He is warned off her and you know she’ll be poison but he’s hooked and he can’t get unstuck, not even when he knows her husband is a born killer, not even when he’s told she’s broken and twisted and no good anymore to anyone.
Howard tells this story with a furious passion that never lets up and there isn’t a dull page in the whole book.
“The Arm” is the story of the quick rise and fall of the greatest Arm Chicago had ever known: Cully, who comes out of the backwater town of Evansville on a Greyhound bus and a contact for Ferguson who’ll set him up with games. Cully has been taught be the best and intuitively knows the odds on every throw. But there are some nights the Arm is magic and cannot fail. Ferguson draws a hard bargain. You use out dice (and thus our reputation), play our assigned games six days a week, we will stake you, and we get seventy percent of the winnings. She tells him: “you use our money and carry our dice. Normally you’ll shoot with whatever dice are in a game when you get there, but occasionally somebody will call for new dice. When that happens you can toss in our dice; but don’t ever put any dice except ours into a game. We know our dice are straight, we can’t guarantee any others. And if you ever get caught with loaded dice in this town, you’ll feel like Jesus on Good Friday. Do you understand?”
Cully is at one the proverbial hayseed out of his element in the glare of the bright lights and the big city. “Hooker had told him, last thing before he boarded the bus, “It’s a fast town, kid, too fast for most of our kind. But I made it twenty years ago, and I think you can make it now. Only thing is, keep one foot on the bank for awhile. Don’t jump in with both feet until you’re sure you can stand the current, get me?”
He also quickly realizes he has the best arm – even better than the professionals he meets there and becomes the king shark of sharks preying upon the salesmen and other goons who are such easy marks to someone who can instantly calculate the odds of and throw. With success comes confidence and swagger and you know that will eventually be his downfall.
His downfall will also come in the form of another gambler’s wife, one Lorry Ann, a stripper who he can’t take his eyes off and fantasies about day and night, particularly when she tells him to break her husband’s game, meaning bankrupt the game. He is warned off her and you know she’ll be poison but he’s hooked and he can’t get unstuck, not even when he knows her husband is a born killer, not even when he’s told she’s broken and twisted and no good anymore to anyone.
Howard tells this story with a furious passion that never lets up and there isn’t a dull page in the whole book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review