R.T. LAWTON
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​Short Stories
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"Reckoning with your Host," is the 6th in my Tales from the Golden Triangle where the younger half-brother must decide how much it is worth to rescue Elder Brother from the clutches of a rival opium warlord. 




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"A Loaf of Bread" is the 7th in my 1660's Paris Underworld series. In this story, the young orphan, incompetent pickpocket is unjustly sent to prison for stealing a loaf of bread. Some of his adult cell mates use him in their escape plans and then leave him behind. Now, he must find his own way to get out of the prison and disappear from the authorities.
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"The Horse" in my Armenian series has the Little Nogai Boy recognizing a horse in the Cossack herd as belonging to the uncle who raised the boy after he became an orphan. Tamur dyes the horse and tries to return it to his uncle in the Nogai Horde. The Cossack who originally stole the horse has other plans.

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"Vet's Day" is the 11th in my Holiday Burglars series.To repay a favor to his old Army sergeant, Beumont agrees to get the Sarge's dog out of a veterinarian clinic, however he doesn't have money to pay the bill, so he enlists Yarnell's assistance to burglarize the clinic and steal the dog, but  there is one thing he didn't plan for.

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"The Chinese Box" has  two half brothers trekking south to the dragon powder factories hidden in the jungles of northern Thailand. Each brother has been given separate mule convoys and  a Chinese Puzzle Box with something hidden inside.

"The Left Hand of Leonard," 6th in the 1660's Paris Underworld series finds the young orphan part of a team of thieves to steal the bones of St. Leonard from a church to the far south of Paris. Unknown to him, the plans for a con scheme have already been laid.
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Yarnell returns to a pawn shop to redeem his wife's wedding ring that she thinks is only being repaired. It's only after the door closes behind him that Yarnell realizes he's walked into the middle of a robbery. And, the robber is an amateur, not a professional criminal like Yarnell and his partner Beaumont.

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"Merit Making" is set in the Golden Triangle of SE Asia where two half-brothers compete to see which one will be the heir to their warlord father's opium empire in the Shan Hills of Burma.  A merit making ceremony is being held for those soldiers lost in the opium wars and one brother subtly turns it to his advantage.

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In "Resolutions" at New Years Eve, Yarnell has the feeling he is being followed while he is on his way to meet his partner Beaumont to pull a burglary in an expensive penthouse during a party. Yarnell thinks he keeps seeing the same guy who keeps changing his appearance. Beaumont tries to convince Yarnell it is nothing. They enter the party as pizza deliverymen and go looking for a valuable painting to steal.

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The Armenian and his servant, the Little Nogai Boy have been captured by raiding Murids in the Wild Country below the Terek River. The Imam requires the Armenian to act as intermediary between him and the Tsar to exchange prisoners, Georgian royalty related to the Tsar for the Imam's son taken by the Russians years before. The Little Nogai Boy remains captive in the Great Aul, a mountain fortress until the Armenian's return.

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Beaumont and Yarnell have a meeting with their fence at the Ukrainian Vodka Room only to find out their fence is lowering the percentage he will pay for stolen goods. The two burglars must now figure out how to cover the pending loss in their future income.

Anthologies
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"On Your Knees Tomorrow" is the story of a modern day cowboy sitting in on a poker game with the wrong crowd. Between the sexy young woman put up as collateral in the final pot and the manipulative businessmen playing in the game, the cowboy has his hands full. He soon finds himself on the run and hunted by men with guns. It's fight or die.

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In "Boudin Noir," a young-orphan inept-pickpocket is threatened by one of King Jules' henchmen. Events turn deadly in the ancient catacombs below the Benedictine Monastery. The young pickpocket's only hope of survival  is the blood sausage he had stolen much earlier from a laborer on the streets of Paris.

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In "Hell Hath No Fury," a 2016 Bouchercon anthology, three convicts have escaped from a Louisiana prison. They've chosen to hide out in an abandoned old southern mansion on the banks of the bayou. Unknown to them, the mansion already has a resident in one of the upper bedrooms. Someone who has been there for a very long time, is lonely for company and has feelings about having been previously being betrayed by a lover.

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"A Private Matter" in the Wild Country of 1850's Chechnya finds the Armenian talked into being an intermediary between two Russian officers in a duel of honor with pistols. Allegedly, the fix is in so no one gets hurt, but there is a double fix that the Armenian knows nothing about.

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"The Delivery" A late night truck delivery by a strange company to an apartment building in the heat of a summer night has residents curious as to the contents of the wooden crate. They congregate on the catwalk outside the receiving apartment where a woman has had men coming and going at all hours, to include policemen carrying paper bags. The curious residents are disappointed in the contents of the crate going in, but few of the curious are present when the supposedly empty crate is moved back to the delivery truck.  

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"Flying without a Parachute" Bopper gets chased by narcotics agents up to the third floor apartment of his heroin dealer where the dealer's bedroom is crowded with customers and the dealer is sitting with two guns and a bag of product. With the cops pounding up the inside stairway, everyone in the room must take his own course of action. For his part, Bopper makes a deadly decision


Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine stories 

Standalone
"Once, Twice, Dead"  September 200
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"A Matter of Values"
​"The Road to Hana"


Twin Brothers Bail Bond series
"The Bond That Keeps"  May 2002
"The Bond Market"  December 2002
"The Big Bail Out"  May 2003
"The Bond Servant"  September 2003
"The Other Bondsman"  July 2004
"In Bond"  November 2004
"The Bond that Ties"  July 2006
"The Bondstone"  May 2007
"The Bondholder"  May 2008
"Tightening of the Bond"  July 2012


The Wild Country series (1850's Chechnya)
"Dark Eyes"  January 2005
"Ransom"  November 2006
"The Length of a Straw"  March 2008
"The Little Nogai Boy"  September 2010
"The Great Aul"  July 2016
"The Horse"  July 2019


1660's Paris Underworld series
"False Keys"  December 2006
"Of Wax and Watermarks"  November 2007
"Boudin Noir"  December 2009
"The Alchemist"  January 2011
"gibet de Montfaucon"  May 2014
"The Left Hand of Leonard"  March 2018
"A Loaf of Bread" November 2019  
"A Helping Hand"
"Green Eyes"

Holiday Burglar series
"Click, Click, Click"  January 2008
"Grave Trouble"  May 2008
"Independence Day"  July 2010
"et tu Valentinus"  March 2011
"Labor Day"  October 2011
"Spring Break"  May 2012
"Ground Hog Day"  May 2015
"May Day"  May 2016
"Resolutions"  January 2017
"Black Friday"  November 2017
​"Vet's Day"  November 2018

"St. Paddy's Day"
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Shan Army series (in the Golden Triangle)
"Across the Salween"  November 2013
"Elder Brother"  January 2015
"On the Edge"  October 2015
"Merit Making" July 2017
​"The Chinese Box"   September 2018
​"Reckoning with your Host"
​"Gnawing at the Cat's Tail"


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