Over half a century of writing, the British detective author Rene Brabazon Raymond (1906–1985) published about ninety crime novels and changed several creative pseudonyms. The most famous of them is James Hadley Chase. “I, like a bloodhound, follow the trail and sense what the reader wants. And what will he buy,” - this is how the master explained the success of his novels, willingly revealing the gold-bearing secret: readers are attracted by “action and rhythm.” In the 20th century, there was no place left for leisurely, old-fashioned stories in which an eccentric detective investigates the mysterious murder of an aristocrat in the backdrop of a cozy country mansion; according to the laws of modern times, a detective uses a revolver almost more often than deduction. This collection includes novels in the noir genre “Another Simpleton” (1961), based on which the film “Palmetto” was filmed in 1998, and “Better I wish I would have remained poor" (1962).