But his gorgeous widow is convinced he was killed - and carries a secret that proves it.Now she has Sam North believing it. The story-hungry TV reporter starts nosing around and discovers what Jack Steele found out the hard way...asking questions can get you disturbing answers, maybe even killed.

    Passing a good time, of course, includes dodging drug dealers, running from the mob, solving medical lab murder mysteries, thwarting hurricane season bank heists, and keeping a crime boss out of local politics. Now you can read his first five Anthony and Edgar-nominated thrilling adventures for only ....Settle down — preferably with a hearty snack — and enjoy this hard-boiled mystery series that's as chock full of laughs as it is chills!CROOKED MANMeet lawyer Tubby Dubonnet. His clients are all renegades from the asylum (aka Orleans Parish), including a transvestite entertainer, a buxom deadbeat blonde, a doctor who refers his own patients to a malpractice lawyer, and a Mardi Gras reveler who drives a float shaped like a giant crawfish pot. His new client is Darryl Alvarez, the manager of a local nightclub who's been caught unloading marijuana from a shrimp boat. At their first meeting, Darryl entrusts Tubby with an ordinary-looking blue gym bag. But after Darryl's unfortunate demise, Tubby realizes he must tighten his grasp on the gym bag — and its million-dollar contents.Tubby can’t just give up the cash. But if he gets caught, he’ll be in jail. And if the wrong people catch him, he’ll wish he was. CITY OF BEADS Tubby Dubonnet is bored. He wants to bill enough hours to pay his alimony and keep his daughter in college, with enough left over for an occasional drink and a good meal, but he longs for something different and exciting.Sure, researching licensing law for the new casino will keep trout meunière on the table, but what could be more tedious? (Unless, of course, the client turns out to be connected.) Meanwhile, there’s the estate of an old friend who controls some dock leases on the wharf. And he agrees to help his daughter’s environmental group stop illegal dumping in the river. Ho-hum, thinks our hero. But suddenly all three cases begin to converge in an entirely ominous way...  NOW Tubby's doing something exciting — he's running for his life! TRICK QUESTION Medical lab janitor Cletus Busters is caught red-handed in a restricted area with the frozen head of Dr. Whitney Valentine, one of the lab's most prestigious researchers. Busters won't say much, except that he's innocent. But given his conspicuous record and past as a voodoo guru, all signs point to life in prison.Calling Tubby Dubonnet! SHELTER FROM THE STORM To out-of-town kingpin Willie LaRue, Mardi Gras seems the perfect time for a New Orleans heist – nobody, but nobody will be thinking about a single other thing. Parties, parades, chaos, alcohol – who could be concerned about a little thing like a bank job? Indeed, all might have gone well except for an out-of-season frog-flogger that threatens to flood the French Quarter – something even Hurricane Katrina couldn't do.Next thing you know the survivors – thieves and revelers alike – find themselves marooned together.

    Two bangs. On the opening day of the hunting season in the Colorado Flat Tops wilderness, two men go missing. The first is a hunting guide. The second is an animal rights protester who believes his creative suicide will galvanize the animal rights movement. Hunting guide Allison Coil hears a distant rifle shot and sees just enough through the swirling snow to believe somebody knows something-and isn't coming forward. But what exactly did she see? Outfitter George Grumley fends off the formal investigation and works to discourage the informal and persistent inquiries by Coil. Grumley knows no limits in the effort to protect his guide service, which caters to fat-cat clients. Who needs hunting regulations when technology can produce the quickest and most thrilling hunt that money can buy?

    Cavalry captain Gabriel Lacey returns to Regency London from the Napoleonic wars, burned out, fighting melancholia, his career ended. His interest is perked when he learns of a missing girl, possibly kidnapped by a prominent member of Parliament. Lacey's search for the girl leads to the discovery of murder, corruption, and dealings with a leader of the underworld. He faces his own disorientation transitioning from a soldier's life to the civilian world at the same time, redefining his role with his former commanding officer and making new friends--from the top of society to the street girls of Covent Garden.#1 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries series.This is a full-length novel, e-version of The Hanover Square Affair, previously published in print by Berkley Prime Crime.

    By this measure, Chef Maurice was very trustworthy indeed.” Take one sleepy Cotswold village, mix in one Poirot-esque murder mystery, add a larger-than-life French chef with an appetite for solving crime, and season with clues and red herrings galore . . . It’s autumn in the Cotswolds, and Chef Maurice is facing a problem of mushrooming proportion. Not only has his wild herb and mushroom supplier, Ollie Meadows, missed his weekly delivery—he’s missing vital signs too, when he turns up dead in the woods near Beakley village. Soon, Chef Maurice is up to his nose in some seriously rotten business—complete with threatening notes, a pignapping, and an extremely well-catered stake-out. Can he solve Ollie’s murder before his home-made investigation brings the killer out for second helpings?

    Unsatisfied with the way the authorities are conducting the investigation, Rosswell, who's always nurtured a secret desire to be a detective, teams up with an ex-con, Ollie Groton, to solve the case before the killer can murder again. Rosswell uncovers a maze of crimes so tangled that he must fight his way to a solution or die trying.

    Alexandra Prescott is a licensed private investigator specializing in finding missing animals. Reuniting pet and owner is more than just a job.While looking for a lost cat, Alex finds a weak and injured Great Dane. The dog has no collar, no tags, and no microchip. And the only person looking for him is a man who might have murdered his own wife.Within 24 hours, Alex has a hunted dog, a cryptic message, and a hitman on her tail. She realizes the only way out of this mess is to solve the mystery of the lost Great Dane.This is an alternate-cover additon for ISBN-13: 978-1-944639-00-6 and ISBN-13: 978-1-944639-01-3.

    For a start she discovers something unsettling in the basement that interests the police officer next door.

    Set in the dark, depraved world of sex-trafficking, this gritty, continuing psychological thriller and drama tells the story of six victims and their hope for revenge and redemption. Book One: House of PleasureBRUTALITY Fueled by rage and disgust, Phoenix runs away from home. The situation there had become unbearable. In fact, things couldn’t get any worse.BETRAYAL But they do. Trusting a boy who she thought was a new friend, she finds herself taken prisoner by a low-class pimp. Then, when she thinks she's on her way to her first seedy trick, Phoenix winds up locked in a limo with no way out. She wakes up in an illegal brothel in New Orleans. BACKLASHPhoenix vows she will find a way to destroy Antoine, the owner of the brothel. Instead of being Antoine’s prostitute, she’ll become his lover, his confidante, and pretty soon, his manager. And then, when he least suspects it, she’ll bring the entire house down. She better be damn good. There will only be one chance.

    Five years ago, Mia Michaels was abducted and killed after her husband, a prominent scientist who may have found the cure for Type II diabetes, went missing. Detective Rodney Peters hunted down an unlikely suspect who wound up convicted for her murder—even though the evidence against him didn’t add up. Now retired from the Ft. Lauderdale Police Department, Rodney’s days are numbered due to his declining health, though he’s relentless in pursing the truth of what really happened to Mia in the hopes of setting an innocent man free—a man he helped put away. With no one left to turn to for help, Rodney enlists the assistance of Farrah Graham, host of the wildly popular Uncorking a Murder podcast, to uncover the truth of what really happened to Mia Michaels. Interested to hear why a retired detective is driven to have a conviction overturned, Farrah and her intern Jimmy “Doubts” follow their curiosity down to Ft. Lauderdale where they uncover a conspiracy involving a deranged CEO, his despondent lover, and a former IRA hitman who all have a vested interest in keeping the truth about Mia Michaels’ death hidden. Together Rodney, Farrah, and Jimmy race against the clock as events unfold like a wheel inside a wheel.

    Local crime boss Voit Fairgreen has just dropped a bag full of cash on his desk and hired him to defend Voit's brother Danny on a murder charge. Andy's one of the movers and shakers in the small southern town of Blainesville, and Voit figures Andy's the kind of inside guy that can cut a deal to get his baby brother out of the jam. The problem is that Danny just might be innocent. But someone powerful needs this case buried, and if an innocent man dies for that, so be it. Andy Cole is a guy who's made a good living by going along to get along. He's been willing to bend every rule, except Rule One--always get paid. But this case will cause him to re-examine his life and push him and his lover, beautiful newspaper editor Elizabeth Sinclair, to risk everything--including their lives-- for the truth. J.D. Rhoades, author of the Kindle bestseller BREAKING COVER and an attorney himself, turns his eye on his own profession in a book that combines the hard-boiled tone of the classic P.I novel with the white-knuckle suspense of the legal thriller.

    Detective Inspector Lorne Simpkins and her partner, DS Pete Childs are assigned to the case. A few days later another victim, this time a young girl, is discovered. Who could the killer be and what's the connection between the two victims?Then after a third murder, the killer contacts Lorne with a grisly surprise. It looks like Lorne has a serial killer on her hands - and one that has become fixated on her. As she tries to solve the crimes, Lorne is also coping with a failing marriage and new, unsympathetic boss with whom she has a secret past. Then, as she begins to despair at the lack of clues, help arrives from an unlikely source.

    But he’s a dinosaur who belongs to another age. Detective Carmen Dehan has such a bad attitude that nobody at the precinct can stomach her. Captain Jennifer Cuevas wants them both out of the way and thinks they make a perfect pair. So she gives them the Cold Cases file – the cases nobody gives a damn about.She has no idea just how hot a cold case can get.Ten years back Nelson Hernandez and his four cousins were playing poker in a dive at Hunts Point. Somebody came in, blew them away and beheaded and castrated Nelson, leaving his head and his balls on the table. There was no shortage of suspects, the Jersey Mob, the Triads from Manhattan, or the 43rds own bent cop, Mick Harragan. But nobody was ever charged, and the night of the murder Mick Harragan went missing with Nelson’s wife, Maria.Now Stone and Dehan plan to find him – whatever the consequences…

    Joe Gunther of the Brattleboro, Vermont police force has a serious problem: in a community where a decade could pass without a single murder, the body count is suddenly mounting. Innocent citizens are being killed—and others set-up—seemingly orchestrated by a mysterious ski-masked man. Signs suggest that a three year-old murder trial might lie at the heart of things, but it’s a case that many in the department would prefer remained closed. A man of quiet integrity, Lt. Gunther knows that he must pursue the case to its conclusion, wherever it leads.Open Season is the first of Archer Mayor’s twenty-three Joe Gunther novels, a series of gripping police procedurals set in New England, where small-town charm, stoicism and civility sometimes conceal brutal truths.

    The strange thing is that Pauline had been gone for years, simply disappearing from the face of the earth. Then one day, Becky received a letter via her aunt's lawyer, telling her she'd inherited an antique shop. She wasn't a very impulsive person, but Becky took up the offer, packed up her life and moved to Rose Hollow. Rose Hollow was a tiny town in Maine, wildly wealthy and full of strange residents: there was always something going on. An uncomfortable chill runs just below the surface, belying a community that plays for keeps but plays it closer to the chest. The residents are nice, but nosy and Becky feels sort of out of place after she moves in and re-opens the store that that been closed for years. Then, after one late night, a dead body turns up in Becky's store, and it is up to her to find out who did it or risk losing her store and the new life she's just begun! This Cozy Mystery Novel is packed with quirky characters, rousing romps and a whodunnit that wraps up cleanly. No cliffhangers, no curse words and no obscenity.