Private investigator Charlie Meiklejohn is called in by insurance companies to follow the trail of a suspected serial arsonist. The arsonist, Carson Danvers, has been on a fanatical crusade since the loss of his wife and son, burning down a series of old, shut-up wooden buildings in which random outbreaks of madness and murder have been occurring. Meiklejohn, with the help of his wife Constance, begins following the criminal trail, but finds himself

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A willing victim complicates a case for Detective Charlie Resnick, “one of the most fully realized characters in modern crime fiction” (Sue Grafton).
  Maria Roy is in the tub, musing on her hatred for her movie producer husband, when Grabianski and Grice break into her house. Though she is fearful at first, something about Jerry Grabianski’s confidence calms her down. Over tall glasses of Scotch, she directs...

The author of the Frank Elder Mystery, Body & Soul, delivers “a powerful, first-class police procedural” (Kirkus Reviews).
  Raymond Cooke is looking for revenge, not corpses. It’s been six weeks since the gang of four young punks attacked him, since the one with the knife slit open his belly and left him to die on the street. After that Raymond bought a knife of his own, and has...

A detective’s dark past meets his violent present in “[a] rich tapestry that lifts the police procedural into the realm of the mainstream novel” (Sue Grafton).
  It starts with five professional thieves. At their first robbery, they press a sawed-off shotgun against a bank manager’s head, and leave with nearly forty thousand pounds. They repeat the trick three times, raking in nearly half a million in cash....

A Christmas kidnapping puts British detective Charlie Resnick in the hot seat. “Cold Light is just about flawless” (The Washington Post Book World).
  Working at the Nottingham public housing authority is miserable, but Nancy Phelan knows that the tenants she services are worse off than her. Consider Gary James, whose family Nancy recently assigned to a new council flat. He’s got two children, no work,...

This series looks sharply at those who perceive themselves as the rich - the elite, and revolves around expensive cars, clothes and posh country clubs. Fans of Sue Grafton, J.A. Jance, and Sara Peretsky will find Shelton's female sleuth captivating. Devout in her dedication for the underdog, Charlie Parker gets drawn into perilous predicaments while sticking her neck out for friends and clients in trouble. She proves a wily opponent for the evil

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