Originally published in 1955, Violent Saturday was voted "Suspense Novel of the Year" by Cosmopolitan and later that same year 20th Century Fox released it as a movie with an all-star cast including Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Lee Marvin, and Ernest Borgnine. The three men arrived in Morgan on Friday afternoon on the two-thirty train from Memphis. Several people noticed them but didn't pay them much attention. They might have been salesmen or businessmen of some sort. The only reason they were noticed at all was because there were three of them. But the strangers had come to Morgan to rob the bank on Saturday, the day after payday. While the town's citizens spent Friday night according to their custom - some placidly, some passionately, and some in acute distress - the men plotted their attack. Saturday dawned stormy, canceling fishing trips, accentuating hangovers, and changing some plans, but not that of the men. At three in the afternoon, the sleepy town exploded into violence, shattering the patterns of several lives, leaving one man shocked by the look of death, and a hero appalled by the nature of his heroism. But the novel is more about the townspeople than the bank robbery itself, illustrating how the ensuing violence touched all their lives. The story focuses on a slice of life in a small town in the '50's, full of interesting characters whose mundane everyday routines meet in an explosive event that leaves them all re-evaluating their lives. You, too, will remember the people of Morgan and its violent Saturday afternoon long after you've finished reading this book. Praise for Violent "Violent Saturday is a helluva a novel and it will appeal to both the reader of thrillers as well as a more literary set. The best part is it does what literature should. It shines a light on the human condition while telling a terrifically entertaining and vibrant story. It is a violent novel that has all of the assets of a well-crafted thriller, but it adds the deliberate pace, the characters, and the illumination of a well-rendered piece of art." - Ben Boulden, Gravetapping Book Reviews. "It is quite an extraordinary effect Mr. Heath has managed in Violent Saturday - like the tick-tick-tick of a time bomb." - Author and playwright Wilbur Daniel Steele About the William L. Heath was born in 1924, in Lake Village, Arkansas, and grew up in Scottsboro, Alabama. In 1942 he entered the University of Virginia, but his attendance there was interrupted when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, in which he served for three years as an aerial radio operator during WWII. He served overseas for seventeen months in the CBI theatre, flying the Hump, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Mr. Heath returned to the University of Virginia after his discharge and completed a B.A. degree in English Literature. During his senior year there, he published several short stories in the school magazine, won the Virginia Spectator Literary Award, and sold his first story to Collier's. He went on to publish three dozen short stories, that were published in Argosy, Esquire, Collier's, Cosmopolitan, and other publications of smaller circulation. His first novel, Violent Saturday, was published in 1955 and also sold to 20th Century Fox. The movie was released later that year with an all-star cast including Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Stephen McNally, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine. His second novel, Ill Wind, received literary acclaim and established him as a writer with exceptional talent. He followed Ill Wind with eight more novels over the course of his career.