Make My Coffin Strong

MAKE MY COFFIN STRONG: Steve Galloway has been away for a while, making his fortune in Saudi oil. Then he gets the letter: his mentor and old friend, Sam Goulding, is dead, and it looks like murder. Now he’s back in NYC with a score to settle. It’s clear to Galloway that the syndicate is behind Sam’s death, but he has no way to prove it. So he gets himself introduced to Jack Barr, a fellow gambler, to see what he can find out―and that’s how he meets Fay. The attraction is immediate. But there’s also Virginia, who knows a thing or two about the syndicate and wants to help. Galloway is soon over his head in women and cold-blooded killers. And as he draws closer to discovering who killed Sam, he jeopardizes not only the lives of those around him, but pits himself against a man he genuinely admires―Jack Barr. Unfortunately, his new friend may be the very man he is looking for.

William Robert Cox was born March 14, 1901 in Peapack, New Jersey, but grew up in Newark where he played football and boxed. His writing career began in 1920 as a sport reporter, and his stories, mostly about tough guys and sports figures, first appeared in 1934 in such magazines as Dime Detective, Mike Shayne’s and Black Mask. Cox published over one thousand short stories in the next 38 years. He moved to the West Coast in 1948 and began working in television where he wrote over one hundred TV shows. His first novel was Make My Coffin Strong in 1954. Cox went on to write many crime, action/adventure, sports and western novels under a variety of pseudonyms, and was working on his 81st novel when he died on July 7, 1988, at his home in Los Angeles.