Crime & Mystery Books

All Detective Heath Barrington and his partner, Alan Keyes, want is to get away for a weekend of romance, but they find murder instead when a missing tie leads them to the body of the peculiar Victor Blount, and Heath can't resist the urge to investigate.  Who killed Blount, and why? 

Clues turn up around every corner, but what do they mean? The bloody "W," the green spool of thread grasped in the dead man’s hand, the newspaper left at the doorstep: they all lead down a strange and winding road of mystery and danger. As Heath and Alan work together to solve the case, they encounter various and eccentric suspects, old friends, and a hostile Chicago Detective, Marty Wilchinski, who doesn’t like Milwaukee police involved in a Chicago crime. Forced to act on their own, out of their jurisdiction, they race against time to find the killer before Wilchinski files the case closed.

Advance Praise for Somewhere Over Lorain Road

"The author pulls all the stops out in this gripping story of love, tragedy, and redemption set against the backdrop of a murder investigation...a five-star win with the best mystery novel I have read in years." – Alan Chin, author of First Exposure, The Plain of Bitter Honey, and Buddha's Bad Boys

“Darker and more powerful than its outline might suggest.” – Daniel Curzon, author of Something You Do in the Dark

For more than forty years, the stain of horrific allegations against their father has haunted the Esker sons. When three little boys were murdered in 1975, their dad was suspected of the crimes. The immense strain of the unsolved case shattered the family, sending the brothers reeling into destinies of death, flight, and, in the case of Don Esker, shame-filled silence.

Years later, Don returns to the family home in North Homestead, Ohio, to help care for his dying father in his final months. His dad longs for the peace that will only come with clearing his name. If Don can find the killer, he can heal his family—and himself. His own redemption begins when he becomes romantically involved with Bruce, who joins the hunt and forces Don to confront the unthinkable answer they’ve uncovered.

Arrow Bay: a picturesque seaside city of parks, mountain trails, incredible views…and corpses. An unidentified vigilante, unhappy with plans to alter the idyllic character of Jake Finnigan’s hometown, goes to extreme ends—in disturbingly creative and fatal ways—to express their displeasure. The citizens of the village are growing increasingly concerned and agitated, wondering who will be next and if the killer walks among them. Jake and his partner Sam O’Conner, who insist that they do not poke their noses into murder investigations, suddenly land in the middle of an increasingly complex and bizarre case, and as the body count grows, find themselves falling under suspicion.

Gregor Slavinsky went overboard. Or did he? He was murdered. Or was he? It’s up to Detective Heath Barrington and his partner, police officer Alan Keyes, to find out as they search for clues and a missing twenty-five thousand dollars aboard an old lake steamer and throughout 1947 Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

They are up against gangsters, con artists, and a very seductive Grant Riker, a fellow policeman who could come between Heath and Alan, upsetting their romance. 

The three of them race the clock to find the truth amidst lies, secrets, and possible scandal, while riding the waves of a potential love triangle.

The city of New Orleans was rocked to its very shaky foundations when the body of six-year-old beauty queen Delilah Metoyer was found, strangled, in the carriage house behind her family’s Garden District mansion. The crime was never solved, and the Metoyer family shattered in the aftermath of the crime. Thirty years later, Delilah’s brother asks Scotty to finally find his sister’s killer…putting Scotty and his friends and family into the crosshairs of a vicious killer.

A Scotty Bradley Mystery

Can a detective and a policeman find love amidst murder? Heath Barrington is an attractive, clever, big city detective, confident, strong, and crazy about police officer Alan Keyes. Down-to-earth, noble, and naïve, Alan struggles with his desires for Heath versus 1940s America and his guilty conscience. 

Heath’s skills of deduction and reasoning are put to the test as he and Alan work together to solve the murder of an eccentric millionaire in his mysterious, isolated estate. They search for clues and uncover long buried secrets of the weekend guests while keeping secrets of their own. 

It’s up to Heath to solve the mystery and convince Alan that some secrets aren’t worth keeping, and lust can lead to love.

Jake Finnigan is already having the worst day of his life when the corpse of notorious tabloid reporter Susan Crane is found locked in the trunk of her car on the ferry where he works. Worse still, though Crane is bound, gagged, and shot in the forehead, her death is ruled a suicide. Convinced of a cover-up, Jake finds himself entangled in the investigation, much to the annoyance of his partner of nearly a decade, Sam O’Conner. As Jake and Sam uncover more about the woman’s blackmailing schemes, the list of suspects grows, and the couple find themselves skidding unavoidably into the killer’s crosshairs. 

Heath Brandon's mother died when he was barely three years old. His father never spoke about her, or her family. So when her family reaches out to him after his father's death, Heath decides to make the trip to Louisiana to get to know the only family he has left.But he soon learns that there was a lot more to his mother's death than he ever knew"...and the beautiful old mansion on the Mississippi River has many secrets, secrets someone would kill to protect.And the key to everything that happened when he was a child just might be hidden in his own memory"...

Life in Amsterdam isn't all windmills and tulips when you're homeless. Jason Dekker lives in a jeep with his dog, Calvin, on the outskirts of the city. A thesis on Van Gogh brought him to the Netherlands, and the love of Dutch artist Willy Hart convinced him to stay. But Willy is gone and Dekker is on the brink of a total meltdown. On a summer morning in the park, Calvin sniffs out the victim of a grisly murder. Dekker sees the opportunity for a risky strategy that might solve their problems. Unfortunately, it puts them directly in the sights of the calculating stone-cold killer, Gadget. Their paths are destined to collide, but nothing goes according to plan when they end up together in an attic sex-dungeon. Identities shift and events careen out of control, much to the bewilderment of one ever-watchful canine. Oscar Wilde wrote that each man kills the thing he loves. He didn't mean it literally. Or did he?

London 1891. Former criminal Ira Adler has built a respectable, if dull, life for himself as a confidential secretary. He even sits on the board of a youth shelter. When the shelter's landlord threatens to sell the building out from under them, Ira turns to his ex-lover, crime lord Cain Goddard, for a loan. But the loan comes with strings, and before he knows it, Ira is tangled up in them and tumbling back into the life of crime he worked so hard to escape. Two old flames come back into Ira's life, along with a new young man who reminds Ira of his former self. Will Ira hold fast to his principles, or will he succumb to the temptations of easy riches and lost pleasures?

It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Every summer three families take a trip together--this year it's to a remote resort in the mountains of upstate New York. Scotty, a teenager who's just come out, is nervous about how his friends will react to him. A late night visit to an old nearby cemetery seems like a great idea to the bored teens, but the old cemetery holds dark secrets hidden for almost a century--secrets that might have been better left undisturbed.

And what originally seemed like a boring week in the mountains gradually becomes a nightmare of terror for the teens and their families...

After an assassination attempt ruins his vacation, Agent Buck 98 is given a cryptic message by a dying drag queen: 3-1-4. The numbers match the date of Dr. Timothy Shoulwater's death, the noted scientist rumored to have discovered a potential cure for the AIDS virus before his notes mysteriously disappeared. Buck is paired with his former best friend turned rival Agent 49, the lovely Miss Noxia von Tüssëll, to investigate Dr. Shoulwater's ex-wife, the religious zealot and growing political advocate Dr. Raven Evangelista, who sponsors a heavily conservative political platform while secretly pursuing more personal and devious ambitions.

But it's neither an anti-gay political bomber nor the romantic pursuit of Richard, the handsome caterer he just met, that challenges Buck the most. It's that before the end of the mission, Buck must keep Noxia from discovering his own darkest fear.

"I shall always be in his shadow, unable to live up to the standard he set at Spindrift, hoping that someday Carlo might love me the way he loved his lost Timothy..."

The memory of Timothy haunts every corner of Spindrift, the beautiful mansion on the Atlantic shore. His face was flawless, his body breathtaking perfection. Everyone who saw him loved him, desired him, wanted him--whether they first laid eyes on him in a magazine ad, on a billboard, or on a box of underwear. No one ever forgot him, once they had passed through his orbit. They remember his wit, intelligence, and sense of style. He was the perfect match for wealthy Carlo Romaniello. Spindrift was the perfect backdrop for the glamorous couple, and the unforgettable, fabulous parties they hosted there. But then tragedy took Timothy, and darkness descended on the beautiful house on the beach. Carlo closed the house, and its secrets remained hidden within.

When Carlo reopens the house as a home for himself and his new young husband, those old secrets begin to creep out into the light. And those secrets might just prove deadly for his new spouse, a young man who has to compete with the memory of the unforgettable Timothy...