CVCO - Overbooked: P.I. Booklist

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Booklists and Suggested Reading

P.I. Crime Fiction Booklist

Page Modified: April 5, 2008

Books about Private Investigators.

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

Cold Case
Author: Barnes, Linda
Publisher: Delacorte List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 0385306148 Date: 1997
Booklist
Bestselling author Linda Barnes is back with a big new book that's sure to enthrall her old fansand capture new ones. Cold Case is both and engrossing mystery and an atmospheric, contemporary novel about old money, family secrets, and the ultimate price of fame.
Deep Pockets
Author: Barnes, Linda
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312282710 Date: 2004
Kirkus
Barnes, one of today's most popular crime fiction writers, returns with another engaging novel featuring Boston P.I. Carlotta Carlyle. Carlotta's curiosity gets the better of her in this complicated, surprising mystery infused with the personality and suspense that have become the trademarks of one of mystery fiction's most beloved authors.
Updated 1.15.04
Purple Cane Road
Author: Burke, James Lee
Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385488440 Date: 2001
Booklist Library Journal PW
While helping out an old friend, Dave Robicheaux is stunned when a pimp looks at him sideways and asks if he is Mae Guillory's boy, the whore a bunch of cops murdered 30 years ago. Thus begins Burke's finest Robicheaux novel, a work with all the dimensions of a classic.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 8/8/00
Jolie Blon's Bounce
Author: Burke, James Lee
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 0743204840 Date: 2002
PW
Bestselling author James Lee Burke's most popular character, Dave Robicheaux, returns in this suspenseful and enthralling story of two brutal murders in New Iberia, Louisiana. Gothic, dense, brutal, touching, and always compelling, Jolie Blon's Bounce is classic storytelling from a writer dubbed "the Faulkner of crime fiction."
Updated 4/18/02
Last Car to Elysian Fields
Author: Burke, James Lee
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 0743245423 Date: 2003
PW Booklist
Bestselling author and two-time Edgar Award winner James Lee Burke returns with detective Dave Robicheaux in a moody, hard-hitting novel that goes the limit in its provocative blend of human drama and relentless noir suspense.
Updated 8.13.03
Indigo Slam: An Elvis Cole Novel
Author: Crais, Robert
Publisher: Hyperion List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0786862610 Date: 1997
Kirkus
When a 15-year-old girl shows up to plead with Los Angeles P.I. Elvis Cole for help finding her errant father, his first impulse is to call Social Services. But Elvis is intrigued, and as he investigates, learns that the disappearing dad seems to be a mover in the criminal underworld who is on the verge of some grand scheme.
L.A. Requiem
Author: Crais, Robert
Publisher: Doubleday List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385495838 Date: 1999
PW Booklist Kirkus
A past vendetta strains the partnership of investigators Joe Pike and Elvis Cole when Pike becomes a suspect in the death of his former lover.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
The Last Detective: Elvis Crais
Author: Crais, Robert
Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385504268 Date: 2003
Booklist PW
The New York Times bestselling author of Hostage and L.A. Requiem spotlights his signature character Elvis Cole, whose cocky exterior holds a troubled soul. When the son of his longtime girlfriend, Lucy Chenier, goes missing, Cole's demons threaten to destroy the world he's built.
Suggested Reading: Private Investigators
Updated 1.28.03
The Final Country
Author: Crumley, James
Publisher: Mysterious $ 24.95 ISBN: 0892966661 Date: 2001
Publishers Weekly
In his first case since the national best seller Bordersnakes, Milo Milodragovitch investigates the rape and murder of his new lady love's sister.
Updated 9/21/01
Goofy Foot: Alex Rasmussen
Author: Daniel, David
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312323492 Date: 2004
PW
In Goofy Foot, private investigator Alex Rasmussen, embarking on a rather routine search for a missing teenager, finds himself in cold water that couldn't be hotter, as the simple task balloons into murderous surfers and a heart-stopping search for a killer.
Updated 1.5.04
Never Street
Author: Estleman, Loren D.
Publisher: Mysterious Press List Price: $23 ISBN: 0892966335 Date: 1997
PW Kirkus
NYTBR Notable
The acclaimed author of the Detroit series brings back celebrated private eye Amos Walker after an abscence of seven years. Following the shadowy trail of a man obsessed with noir gangster flicks from the 40's, Amos is brought to the lavishly restored Fox motion picture palace, where a violent, nightmarish conclusion is played out against the silvery light of the big screen.
The Witchfinder
Author: Estleman, Loren D.
Publisher: Mysterious List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 08929666637 Date: 1998
PW BL
Celebrated Detroit private investigator Amos Walker, who made highly successful return in Never Street, now burns up the streets of the motor city in hot pursuit of a "witchfinder."
The Hours of the Virgin
Author: Estleman, Loren D.
Publisher: Mysterious List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0892966831 Date: 1999
PW
Walker follows the 500-year-old trail of a stolen illuminated manuscript across the bleak landscape of a dead city, coming face to face with a variety of odd characters.
A Smile on the Face of the Tiger
Author: Estleman, Loren D.
Publisher: Mysterious $ 24.95 ISBN: 0892967064 Date: 2001
Booklist PW
Detroit private eye Amos Walker investigates a deadly secret as old as World War II when he tracks down Eugene Booth, a crusty old writer hammering out a novel in a rustic motel cabin. When the writer winds up hanging from his own belt, Walker must discover the connection between the apparent suicide and the murder of Booth's wife 40 years before.
Updated 8/7/00
Closing Time
Author: Fusilli, Jim
Publisher: Putnam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399147934 Date: 2001
PW
When his wife and son are murdered, Terry Orr is left to raise his 12-year-old daughter, Bella. The killer is still roaming the streets of New York. Now, the only way Terry can cope with his pain and grief is to learn the skills of the P.I. trade--and perhaps discover the truth about the event that shattered his family. But the more Terry obsesses about revenge, the more Bella needs him.
Suggested Reading: Hard-Boiled/Noir
Updated 8/4/01
A Well Known Secret
Author: Fusilli, Jim
Publisher: Putnam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399149317 Date: 2003
PW Booklist
A simple missing persons case draws Terry Orr--troubled father, reluctant private investigator--into a world of death and deceit in this sequel to the critically acclaimed Closing Time.
Suggested Reading: Hard-Boiled/Noir
Updated 9.23.02
Bloody Secrets
Author: Garcia-Aguilera, Carolina
Publisher: Putnam Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399143866 Date: 1998
PW
Miami P.I. Lupe Solano is back - in Carolina Garcia-Aguiler's third and most ambitious book to date. In a sweeping story that takes readers from the last days of Batitista's Havana to the Guantanamo Bay refugee camp to Miami's high society, Lupe accepts the case of a balsero - a refugee who escaped Cuba by raft.
Strawberry Sunday: John Marshall Tanner
Author: Greenleaf, Stephen
Publisher: Scribner Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0684849542 Date: 1999
Booklist
San Francisco P.I. John Marshall Tanner is back and heading for serious trouble as a young woman's murder pulls him into the dangerous and devious world of migrant farm work.
Ellipsis: A John Marshall Tanner Mystery
Author: Greenleaf, Stephen
Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0684849550 Date: 2001
PW
A riveting new John Marshall Tanner thriller features murder and intrigue in the glamorous world of a mega-bestselling novelist. It's the kind of case the San Francisco P.I. doesn't usually accept: bodyguard to a world-famous writer, Chandelier Wells. But as he negotiates the complex turns of Chandelier's life, he is unaware that his own life is about to take a dramatic turn.
Updated 6/7/00
A Cold Day in Paradise
Author: Hamilton, Steve
Publisher: Dunne List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312192487 Date: 1998
Kirkus
On a bitter, cold night in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, ex-Detroit cop Alex McKnight answers a cry for help from wealthy Edwin Fulton - only to find the man - a compulsive gambler who had gone to meet with a bookmaker - in his motel room with his throat cut.
The Winter of the Wolf Moon
Author: Hamilton, Steve
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312252951 Date: 2000
PW
In this hardboiled sequel to A Cold Day in Paradise, Alex McKnight has retreated from his private eye business on the frozen shores of Lake Superior. But events have begun to spin out of control, and he'll soon have to deal with drug-crazed hockey goons, mysterious men wearing hunting caps and guns, and a cold-blooded killer from the other side of the world.
North of Nowhere
Author: Hamilton, Steve
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312268971 Date: 2002
PW
It's summertime in Paradise, Michigan, and reclusive Alex McKnight is playing poker when three masked men arrive at the bar/restaurant where he hangs out. The private detective is forced to realize that not only is there no place to hide, but sometimes that can be a blessing.
Updated 3/14/02
Blood is the Sky: Alex McKnight
Author: Hamilton, Steve
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312301154 Date: 2003
Kirkus
When a longtime friend asks Alex McKnight for help in finding his brother, a hunting guide to rich clients who has vanished in northern Ontario with a group of hunters, they begin the long drive north. Soon, Alex and his friend are stranded in the heart of the Canadian wilderness with no food, no weapons--and no way out.
Updated 3.27.03
Ice Run: Alex McKnight
Author: Hamilton, Steve
Publisher: Minotaur $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312301219 Date: 2004
Kirkus
P.I. Alex McKnight's romantic weekend with Natalie Reynaud turns into an investigation of a mysterious note and a terrible family secret.
Updated 4.26.04
Speak of the Devil
Author: Hawke, Richard
Publisher: Random $ 21.95 ISBN: 1400064252 Date: 2006
Booklist
In this gripping and entertaining novel, a charismatic Manhattan P.I. is caught up in the city's darkest conspiracy.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 11.2.05
Mildred Pierced
Author: Kaminsky, Stuart M.
Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 24 ISBN: 0786711825 Date: 2003
Booklist
Film legend Joan Crawford is the key witness to murder in Hollywood sleuth Toby Peters's 23rd outing. That down-at-the-heels gumshoe again proves to be "an unblemished delight, " as the Washington Post Book World puts it.
Updated 6.25.03
The Blue Edge of Midnight
Author: King, Jonathan
Publisher: Doubleday $ 22.95 ISBN: 0525946438 Date: 2002
PW
Featuring Max Freeman, an ex-cop from Philadelphia, The Blue Edge of Midnight marks the debut of a powerful new crime series.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 2/21/02
A Visible Darkness
Author: King, Jonathan
Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525947140 Date: 2003
Booklist
Following up his acclaimed debut that introduced former Philadelphia cop Max Freeman, King delivers another gripping story. When attorney Billy Manchester calls Max about a string of suspicious deaths among elderly women, Max reluctantly pries where he's not wanted to find an unseen killer.
Updated 2.20.03
Suggested Reading: Florida Fiction
Dynamite Road
Author: Klavan, Andrew
Publisher: Forge $ 25.95 ISBN: 0765307855 Date: 2003
PW
For readers who like their tough guys really tough, their femmes fatale and the action explosive--welcome to Dynamite Road and the world of Jim Bishop--a hard man, as cold as the wind off the water and tough to the point of brutality.
Suggested Reading: Hardboiled | Noir
Updated 11.3.03
Shotgun Alley
Author: Klaven, Andrew
Publisher: Forge $ 24.95 ISBN: 0765307863 Date: 2004
PW
Klavan's private eye team from Dynamite Road, Scott Weiss and Jim Bishop, return for a showdown with a politician's sexy daughter and the leader of a band of motorcycle gang outcasts.
Updated 9.27.04
Tonight I Said Goodbye
Author: Koryta, Michael
Publisher: Minotaur $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312332459 Date: 2004
LJ
A remarkable crime novel from the winner of the 2003 SMP/PWA Prize for Best First PI Novel, this debut finds two private investigators searching for a young girl and her mother after the child's father is found dead of an apparent suicide.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 9.20.04
Sacred
Author: Lehane, Dennis
Publisher: Morrow List Price: $23 ISBN: 0688143814 Date: 1997
PW Kirkus
Nothing is remotely what it seems as two private detectives travel from the wind-blown streets of Boston to the rum-punch sunsets of Florida's Gulf Coast and back again, searching for a woman and a man who could be saints or sinners, victims or victimizers, alive or dead. And the more P.I. Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro discover, the more they realize that on this case, any wrong steps will certainly be their last.
Gone, Baby, Gone
Author: Lehane, Dennis
Publisher: William Morrow List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0688153321 Date: 1998
PW Kirkus
Hired to find a six-year-old girl who vanished from her home without a trace a full year before, Boston private eyes Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro find themselves caught up in a frenzy of media sensationalism after a second child disappears.
Prayers For Rain
Author: Lehane, Dennis
Publisher: Morrow Price: $ 25 ISBN: 068815333x Date: 1999
PW Kirkus
Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro's relationship has hit the skids. Despite their problems, however, the pair is reunited to close down a predator whose method of killing seems to put him beyond the law: he drives his victims to commit suicide.
Suggested Reading: Psycho Killers
Sugar House: Tess Monaghan
Author: Lippman, Laura
Publisher: Avon $ 24 ISBN: 0380978172 Date: 2000
Kirkus
After killing a teenage girl, a glue-sniffing boy barely spends a month in prison before he is killed, too. The boy's sister hires Tess to find out why. What Tess finds drags her down into a fetid and deadly swamp of power, dirty money, high-level political corruption, and sordid secrets.
Updated 7/21/00
In a Strange City
Author: Lippman, Laura
Publisher: Morrow $ 24 ISBN: 0380978180 Date: 2001
PW
Lippman's Tess Monaghan novel is an homage to the city of Baltimore. The plot hinges on literary history involving an anonymous figure who places brandy and a rose on Edgar Allan Poe's grave every January on the writer's birthday--until one year the mystery man is murdered.
Updated 8/23/01
The Last Place
Author: Lippman, Laua
Publisher: Morrow $ 23.95 ISBN: 0380978199 Date: 2002
Kirkus
With each novel, Lippman enhances her reputation as one of the premier suspense writers alongside Janet Evanovich and Patricia Cornwell. In this latest installment, P.I. Tess Monaghan faces her darkest demons--and possibly a serial killer--when she's hired to research a series of unsolved homicides that might be overlooked cases of domestic violence.
Updated 8.13.02
Lovers Crossing
Author: Mitchell, James C.
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312315309 Date: 2003
Booklist
Brinker is a private detective and former INS agent whose years policing the border ended when he was shot--most likely by one of his own men. In the tradition of Michael McGarrity, Mitchell introduces a border detective who is as fully human as he is smart and tough.
Suggested Reading: Fiction & Mystery Debuts
Updated 7.17.03
Bad Boy Brawly Brown: Easy Rawlins
Author: Mosley, Walter
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 03160730161 Date: 2002
Kirkus PW
Easy Rawlins is out of the investigation business and as far away from crime as a black man can be in 1960s Los Angeles. But living around desperate men means life gets complicated sometimes. When an old friend gets in enough trouble to ask for Easy's help, he finds he can't refuse.
Updated 6.29.02
Both Ends of the Night
Author: Muller, Marcia
Publisher: Mysterious List Price: $23 ISBN: 089296622x Date: 1997
PW Kirkus
PW Best Book of '97
The extraordinarily popular Sharon McCone takes readers on a deadly missing persons case. Soon after her flight instructor, Matty, confides to Sharon that her boyfriend is missing, she is killed in an "accidental" plane crash. Following sinister leads, Sharon travels to a frozen wilderness - and comes face to face with Matty's suspected killer.
Listen to the Silence
Author: Muller, Marcia
Publisher: Mysterious $ 23.95 ISBN: 0892966890 Date: 2000
Booklist
Upon the death of her father, San Francisco-based PI Sharon McCone discovers she's adopted and is determined to find her biological parents. She journeys to Idaho's Flathead Reservation for answers but discovers some locals who will stop at nothing to keep certain secrets hidden.
Updated 5/22/00
Dead Midnight
Author: Muller, Marcia
Publisher: Mysterious $ 24.95 ISBN: 089296765x Date: 2002
PW Library Journal
From the author of Point Deception comes a new Sharon McCone mystery set in San Francisco. McCone throws herself into work so she can get past her brother's suicide, but the wrongful-death suit she is working on hits too close to home.
Updated 6/7/02
Total Recall
Author: Paretsky, Sara
Publisher: Delacorte $ 25.95 ISBN: 0385313667 Date: 2001
PW
In Paretsky's most mesmerizing novel yet, V.I. Warshawski probes a world of personal crisis, recovered memory, and international fraud with the hallmark grit and moral passion that have made her one of the most admired private investigators in contemporary fiction.
Updated 7/16/01
Blacklist: V.I. Warshawski
Author: Paretsky, Sara
Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399150854 Date: 2003
Booklist LJ
Paretsky returns with her heroine V.I. Warshawski--"a private eye with the sharpest tongue and hardest head in Chicago" The New York Times). This is a story of secrets and betrayals that stretch across four generations--secrets political, social, sexual, financial: all of them with the power to kill.
Updated 9.08.03
Shrink Rap
Author: Parker, Robert B.
Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399149309 Date: 2002
PW
Boston P.I. Sunny Randall goes on te road to protect a bestselling author-and uncovers a world of dark secrets-in this new mystery by the author of Widows Walk.
Updated 8.13.02
Right as Rain
Author: Pelecanos, George
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316695262 Date: 2001
Kirkus Booklist PW
Derek Strange, a private detective, is hired to clear the lingering doubts about a young black police officer killed in the line of duty. After Strange interviews Terry Quinn, the officer who pulled the trigger, Quinn joins the investigation and helps seek answers in the darkest sectors of Washington, D.C., where racism and ruthless capitalism create a lawless world.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 1/18/01
Hell to Pay
Author: Pelecanos, George
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316695068 Date: 2002
Booklist PW
Derek Strange and Terry Quinn, the team of private investigators who made their debut in Right As Rain, are hired to find a teenager turned prostitute and enter their most dangerous territory ever.
Updated 12/11/01
Illusions
Author: Pronzini, Bill
Publisher: Carrol & Graf List Price: $23 ISBN: 0786704039 Date: 1997
BL
The "Nameless Detective's" 24th case presents a superb psychological mystery that delves deeply into the human imagination. "Nameless" has become obsessed with the investigation of the suicide of his estranged friend and former partner, Eberhardt, when he decides to take on the job of finding a Santa Fe businessman's ex-wife. The job soon takes on frightening dimensions when the
Bleeders
Author: Pronzini, Bill
Publisher: Caroll & Graf $ 24 ISBN: 0786709421 Date: 2002
Booklist PW
A simple case gets murderously complicated when "Nameless, " Bill Pronzini's seasoned private-eye, exposes a nasty scam that involves junior account executive Jay Cohalan, his unhappy wife, and a mistress with a serious drug problem.
Updated 11/20/01
Spook
Author: Pronzini, Bill
Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 25 ISBN: 0786710861 Date: 2003
Kirkus
Nameless is back, and Pronzini's much-praised Bleeders did not conclude a series that Booklist calls a stunning and unique achievement in crime fiction and one of the greatest-ever detective series. Instead Spook, takes his seasoned private-eye hero to a new phase of a still-evolving 30-year career.
Updated 10.31.02
Mourners: Nameless
Author: Pronzini, Bill
Publisher: Forge $ 24.95 ISBN: 0765309327 Date: 2006
Kirkus
Pronzini's "New York Times" bestselling series continues, as Nameless tails a man who has been attending the funerals for women who had died violently. Was he responsible for their deaths? One woman thinks the man killed her sister, and her insistence is becoming a problem.
Updated 12.27.05
Big Red Tequila
Author: Riordan, Rick
Publisher: Bantam $ 6.50 ISBN: 0553576445 Date: 1997
PW
Ten years ago, Jackson "Tres" Navarre left San Antonio and the memory of his father's murder behind. Now he's back, looking for answers, but all he finds is mob-style corruption and local politicians out to ruin his homecoming. When his girlfriend turns up missing, Tres must act fast to rescue her, nail his Dad's killer--then save his own hide!
Updated 7.12.04
The Last King of Texas
Author: Riordan, Rick
Publisher: Bantam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553801562 Date: 2000
Booklist PW
Tres Navarre has a passion for tequila, a Ph.D. in English, and a penchant for trouble. His latest assignment puts him on a carousel-ride collision course with a killer - one-way ticket to betrayal and death in a novel of suspense in which everyone is guilty of something.
The Devil Went Down to Austin
Author: Riordan, Rick
Publisher: Bantam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553110977 Date: 2001
PW Booklist
Garrett is a computer genius and a fool, a long-haired, wheelchair-bound Jimmy Buffet fan who's accused of killing his oldest friend. Garrett doesn't want to ask his private eye brother for help, but Navarre has never been one to take no for an answer. All too soon, he's about to ride the high tech wave in a one-way dive to betrayal and death.
Updated 5/17/01
Southtown: Tres Navarre
Author: Riordan, Rick
Publisher: Bantam $ 24 ISBN: 0553801848 Date: 2004
PW
Will "the Ghost" Stirman has just staged a bloody escape from prison with a gang of violent cons, leaving behind him a trail of brutal, unforgiving violence that will end in an area of San Antonio known as Southtown--but may soon just as well be called hell on earth.
Updated 4.5.04
No Colder Place
Author: Rozan, S.J.
Publisher: St Martin's List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 031216811x Date: 1997
PW Kirkus
PW Best Book of '97
P.I. Bill Smith goes undercover on a Manhattan construction site plagued by a series of thefts and misfortunes. With his sometimes-partner Lydia Chin, Smith finds himself in the midst of a much more serious case - one of fraud and murder that could reach into the deepest and most secret levels of the underworld.
A Bitter Feast
Author: Rozan, S.J.
Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312192592 Date: 1998
PW Booklist Kirkus
Chinese-American P.I. Lydia Chin has lived in New York City's Chinatown all her life. But even to her, the complex interactions of this city-within-a-city are often elusive. A simple missing persons case leads Lydia and her sometime-partner Bill into a deadly conflict between powerful rivals, the Feds, and the NYPD. This is a brilliant thriller by one of the genre's emerging masters. From the St. Martin's catalog.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Stone Quarry
Author: Rozan, S.J.
Publisher: Minotaur List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312209126 Date: 1999
PW Booklist
In the finest novel yet in an award-winning series, murder, corruption, and long-held secrets threaten to destroy a small town when P.I. Bill Smith is summoned to recover six stolen paintings.
Reflecting the Sky
Author: Rozan, S.J.
Publisher: Minotaur $24.95 ISBN: 0312244274 Date: 2001
Kirkus Booklist PW
Lydia Chin . . . is hired by Grandfather Gao, one of the most respected figures in New York City's Chinatown, for what seems to be a simple task. Lydia, along with her professional partner Bill Smith, is to fly to Hong Kong to deliver a family heirloom to the young grandson of a recently deceased colleague. They arrive in Hong Kong safely, but before they can deliver the heirloom, the grandson is kidnapped and two separate ransom demands are made. While the family of the kidnapped boy tries to freeze them out, Lydia and Bill must quickly learn their way around a place where the rules are different, the stakes are high, and the cost of failure is too dire to imagine. - from the jacket copy.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 1/24/01
Streets on Fire: Jack Liffey
Author: Shannon, John
Publisher: Carrol & Graf $ 24 ISBN: 0786710187 Date: 2002
Booklist
Walk L.A.'s mean streets in private-eye Jack Liffey's shoes as he searches for the missing son of a man involved with white supremacists, black separatists, and skinheads.
Updated 3/26/02
City of Strangers
Author: Shannon, John
Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 24 ISBN: 0786711639 Date: 2003
Booklist PW
In the sixth novel of the series that the Philadelphia Inquirer calls "lean and literate" PI Jack Liffey probes the complex ethnic mix of the Persian communities in Los Angeles in a gripping tale that confronts youthful idealism with perfervid fundamentalism.
Updated 4.7.03
Hunter's Moon
Author: Stabenow, Dana
Publisher: Putnam Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399144684 Date: 1999
Kirkus
A corporate hunting retreat turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse in the ninth mystery starring Alaskan P.I. Kate Shugak.

The Singing of the Dead

Stabenow, Dana

A Fine and Bitter Snow: Kate Shugak
Author: Stabenow, Dana
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312205481 Date: 2002
PW
In a tense battle between conservationists and developers of AlaskaUs pristine wilderness, P.I. Kate Shugak finds herself in a murderous environment. Set in Alaska, Edgar Award-winner StabenowUs novels combine an evocative portrait of life in the frozen north with taut suspense and topnotch characters.
Updated 5/23/02
A Grave Denied: Kate Shugak
Author: Stabenow, Dana
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312306814 Date: 2003
PW
Stabenow takes her Edgar Award-winning Kate Shugak series to new heights with a masterful thriller about a murdered mystery man.
Updated 7.8.03
Street Level
Author: Truluck, Bob
Publisher: Minotaur $ 22.95 ISBN: 031226626x Date: 2001
PW Booklist
Duncan Sloan is a private eye who works when he feels like it. Now he's been hired to find an as-yet unborn baby in the grimy pockets of Orlando, Florida. What he discovers instead is the three murdered bodies of the mother's relatives. Now, he must find the bad guys or the killing will continue.
Updated 8/7/00

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