ALL WHITE GIRLS

Wildside Press, 2001

One young woman is missing. Another is dead.

They were drawn to Windy City like moths to a flame, but the city’s bright lights can’t illuminate every dark corner. Hidden in the alleys and back streets and in a three-block-long stretch of strip clubs and adult bookstores are the men who prey on young women like these: the pedophiles, pimps, and pornographers.

When former partners, unlicensed investigator Big Dick Rickenbacher and Homicide Lieutenant Salvador Castellano, find their cases overlapping in this violent world of sexual depravity, old flames rekindle, old secrets finally surface, and old crimes demand retribution.

In the Town of Dreams Unborn and Memories Dying

Barley Books, 2000

When young cop Mike Morelli offers Patrick Bates a lift in his car, he is anticipating a regular shift. Bates, one of the few surviving members of the Baker High School class of 1974, has other ideas.

John Passetti watches his dead brother emerge from his ocean grave, an old woman dies after reporting a graveyard desecration, and the town drunk is seeing ghosts. Hardly a regular shift. But will the students of ’74 attend Bates’ reunion?

Just In Time For Love

Hard Shell Word Factory, 1998 & 2001

His father writes confessions and jokes, and the biggest joke of all is his name—Justin Tyme. But Jay, as he prefers to be called, hasn’t had much to laugh about in the years since his mother died. His father retreats into an alcohol-hazed world of denial and self-pity, reversing their care-giver roles, and forcing Jay to grow up virtually on his own.

Then, they move to O’Shea, where his father manages a mobile home park, and Jay begins yet another year as the “new kid” in school. He has a lot to learn—about life, his father, and himself, but most of all, about love. And it all begins the day Jay meets Cindy Hamilton.

Psi Cops

Wildside Press, 2000
Books In Motion, 1995
AudioBook Read by Maynard Villars

Geeks and Freaks.

That’s what Detective Sergeant Tony Carvelli thinks of Psi Cops until he’s faced with a sadistic serial killer who leaves no evidence behind.

In a near-future St. Louis, after sexually-transmitted diseases have been eliminated and sex without commitment is a lifestyle for much of the population, Carvelli investigates the deaths of women dismembered in their own bedrooms.

Carvelli still believes in the old values: love before sex and investigation before technology. When Psi Cop Colleen Allison is assigned to the case against his wishes—thanks to his new partner, recently-promoted Phil Palmer—Carvelli resents her and everything she represents.

Fighting against time and against each other, Carvelli, Palmer, and Allison struggle to find the killer before he strikes again.

Deadly Campaign

Wildside Press, 2000
Books in Motion, 1994
AudioBook Read by Jack Labbe

Covering City Hall during an election year was all the excitement reporter Dan Fox needed—until he discovered Alderman Bill Franklin’s bullet-ridden body.

Who killed the alderman? Why did they do it? Fox wants the story. Everyone else wants him.

Hit men, mob bosses, politicians, and mistresses: They all have stories to tell, and Fox pieces them together while dodging bullets and fighting deadlines.

While Fox digs for the story, long-hidden secrets rise to the surface—secrets that threaten the political fabric of the city—and Fox soon discovers he’s caught in the middle of a Deadly Campaign.

Yesterday in Blood and Bone

Wildside Press, 2005

Michael Bracken returns with another impressive collection of hardboiled crime fiction, including his original-to-this-collection novella Yesterday in Blood and Bone.

When veteran newspaper reporter Benjamin “Bucky” Weaver and Alderman William Kelvin are killed, reporter Dan Fox finds himself searching deep into the past to discover how the two men were connected and why someone would want them dead. In the process, Fox learns a lesson about prejudice, 1950’s justice, and how the power of the press is sometimes embodied in the things that aren’t said.

Also included is the Derringer Award-winning “All My Yesterdays” and the Derringer Award-nominated “Cuts Like a Knife.”

Canvas Bleeding

Wildside Press, 2002

Tales of Natural and Supernatural Noir.

Whether real or imagined, natural or supernatural, the horrors in these macabre tales of lost love, quiet desperation, and painful memories will linger in your thoughts long after you’ve turned the last page. These are dark, dark tales.

BAD GIRLS

Wildside Press, 2000

When a French secret service operative is murdered on a lonely Alpine highway, a womanizing CIA agent must find the killer and terminate “With Extreme Prejudice.”

Back in the states, the same agent discovers “The Only Good Red.”

Three years after a bank robbery goes bad, a convict on the verge of parole learns that his partner’s wife really knows how to set up a “Con Job.”

When an attractive young woman borrows money for a new car, it’s the loan manager who learns never to trust the “First Blonde on the Left.”

After an account executive visits a fortune teller, he discovers there’s “A Price to Pay.”

A dead man dressed like a woman and the cop leading the investigation aren’t what they seem until you peel away the “Husks.”

When two ex-cons try to return an unwanted engagement ring, they find themselves stuck between the “Rock and a Hard Place.”

A husband, a wife, and a hired killer soon learn that “Three’s A Shroud.”

A disgraced jockey and his girlfriend take matters into their own hands and there’s “Vengeance to Show in the Third.”

An ex-con can’t believe his luck when a naked socialite seduces him. He soon learns not to throw his stones at “Glass Houses.”

They do bad things. For love. For money. For fun. They’re Bad Girls.

Tequila Sunrise

Wildside Press, 2000

Nathaniel Rose.

Private Eye. Tough Guy.

He works hard, plays hard, and loves hard. Rose would do anything for the women in his life, from the strippers to the socialites.

When an old case comes back to haunt him, who can Rose trust?

When a client’s husband disappears, why does Rose lose his taste for fast food?

When a young woman wants to make a few copies, why does she honeymoon in heaven?

When seven witnesses watch a man kill his wife and her lover, how lucky can he be?

When a socialite wants her husband dead, is she man enough to do it?

When a stripper bites off more than she can chew, what does Rose uncover?

When a lawyer blackmails her own clients, what’s love got to do with it?

After a brief tour of Korea and ten years as a cop, Rose now walks the mean streets of St. Louis, Missouri. Whether it takes brains, brawn, or bullets to solve a case, and with a hardboiled sense of justice to guide him, Rose takes the most difficult cases and the most beautiful clients to heart.

Even Roses Bleed

Books In Motion, 1995
AudioBook Read by Maynard Villars

“An intriguing group of electrifying short stories” including five stories featuring Private Eye Nathaniel Rose and two other mystery/suspense tales.