title: The Rat on Fire (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
author:  George V. Higgins 
description: <br />Mr. Higgins at his best.<i>Atlantic Monthly</i><br /><br />If you are a Higgins fan, you should jump at this one.<i>Houston Chronicle</i><br /><br />"Aspiring writers of any genre, not just legal suspense, would be wise to read lots of George Higgins." --John Grisham<br /><br />"George V. Higgins was a brilliant writer." --Robert P. Parker<br /><br />Higgins deserves to stand in the company of the likes of Chandler and Hammett as one of the true innovators in crime fiction. Scott Turow<br /><br />"Higgins can plot a whole book like one long chase scene. He can write dialogue so authentic it spits." <i>Life</i><br /><br />"The Balzac of the Boston underworld. ... Higgins is almost uniquely blessed with a gift for voices, each of them ... as distinctive as a fingerprint."<i>The New Yorker</i><br /><br />One of the great crime writers of the twentieth century. <i>Kansas City Star</i>
zlib_text: **Lizard Men of Los Angeles**
  
   **By Lewis Shiner**
  
  The beautiful black-haired woman suddenly turned, raised the gleaming
  revolver, and fired six resounding shots. Five .38 caliber slugs ripped into
  the wooden packing crate that Johnny Cairo had crawled into only moments
  before. The sixth bullet exploded a vase of red carnations that stood next to
  the crate.
  
  Something slumped against the inside of the wooden box. A thread of bright
  crimson oozed between the pine boards and slowly trickled downwards.
  
  The woman lowered the pistol, shock and horror spreading across her elegant
  features. The empty revolver clattered to her feet and she took one tentative
  step, then another, toward the crate.
  
  "Stop!" cried a man's voice from the back of the theater. "Don't touch that
  box!"
  
  The audience turned, gasped, and broke into applause as they saw that the
  speaker was none other than Johnny Cairo himself, changed from his dark suit
  and cape to evening clothes and sporting a bright, blood-red cumm