<DIV>Before achieving critical acclaim as a novelist, David Markson paid the rent by writing several crime novels, including two featuring the private detective Harry Fannin. Together here in one volume, these works are now available to a new generation of readers.<BR><BR>In <I>Epitaph for a Tramp,</I> Fannin isn't called out to investigate a murder ? it happens on his doorstop. In the sweltering heat of a New York August night, he answers the buzzer at his door to find his promiscuous ex-wife dying from a knife wound. To find her killer, Fannin plies his trade with classic hard-boiled aplomb. In the second novel, <I>Epitaph for a Dead Beat,</I> Fannin finds himself knee-deep in murder among the beatniks and bohemians of the early 1960s, where blood seems to flow as readily as cheap Chianti.<BR><BR>Intricately plotted and rife with wisecracks, David Markson offers suspenseful and literary crime novels.<BR></div>