H. A. DeRosso is Back in Print

This morning I made a wonderful discovery. Three of H. A. DeRosso’s books are back in print as trade paperbacks and low cost ebooks. Two are novels, the third is a collection, and all three are westerns. The titles: .44, The Dark Brand, and Under the Burning Sun. I reviewed Under the Burning Sun several years ago—

“It tended toward the unusual and bleak, the mythical and surreal, but it also vitalized the characters with a hard-bitten sadness and self-awareness that is rarely found in genre fiction. A major theme in the stories is one of hope, but it is hope that is never fulfilled.”

—and the stories are as vibrant in my memory now as they were when I originally read them.

.44

Publisher’s description: “Dan Harland was a man with a reputation—a reputation earned through killing. He was a hired gun, and the speed of his .44 was the stuff of legend. He never enjoyed his work, but he did it well and the pay was good.

But even the money didn’t help when Harland was hired to hunt down a man who seemed all too ready to be killed. The look in that man's eyes as he died stirred something almost forgotten in Harland's soul...his conscience. All at once, Harland knew he couldn’t rest until he found the mysterious man who had hired him for the job—even if the trail led to his own grave.”

The Dark Brand

Publisher’s description: “Stuck in a jail cell with a man due to be hanged, Driscoll found out that the guy had robbed a bank and killed a man. He also found out that the money was never recovered. Now out of jail, Driscoll realizes that the townspeople think the condemned man had told Driscoll where the loot was buried before he had died. Now it seems that everybody wants that money enough to kill for it.”

Under the Burning Sun

Publisher’s description: “Of all the amazing writers published in the popular fiction magazines of the 1940s and '50s, one of the greatest was H.A. DeRosso. Within twenty years he published nearly two hundred Western short stories, all noted for their brilliant style, their realism and their compelling vision of the dark side of the Old West. Now, finally we have a collection of the best work of this true master of the Western story.

This collection, edited by Bill Pronzini, presents a cross-section of DeRosso's Western fiction, spanning his entire career. Here are eleven of his best stories and his riveting short novel, ‘The Bounty Hunter,’ all powerful and spellbinding, and all filled with the excitement, the passion, and the poetry of Western writing at its peak.”

Publicity Push: Garry Disher's Wyatt Novels

Garry Disher is my favorite Australian crime writer. I first discovered his work in the mid-1990s when his publisher, Allen & Unwin, imported the first five Wyatt novels to the United States as mass market paperbacks. Their appearance was brief and they have been highly sought after, and very pricey—ranging from $30 to $100—on the secondary market since.

Wyatt is a professional criminal in the mold of Richard Stark’s Parker, but the stories are anything but derivative. They are hard, original, and more fun than nearly anything I have ever read. Mr. Disher’s U. S. publisher, Soho Crime, has published three Wyatt novels over the past few years—Port Vila Blues, The Fallout, and a new title Wyatt—but the earlier books have continued to be difficult to find. Until now, because the titles are finally available as ebooks. The novels are below—if you click the title you will be transported to each book’s Amazon page—with the publisher’s brief description and the first paragraph from each novel.  

Kickback.

Publisher’s description: Wyatt plans to hit a suburban law firm for the settlement money in its safe. But he’s working with cowboys, and the lawyer planning to rip off her boss is a little too mysterious for his comfort. Wyatt’s as good as they come, but everything needs to go like clockwork—and you can’t always plan around human frailty.

First paragraph: Wyatt tensed. A silver BMW had emerged from the driveway of the Frome place. The headlights plunged, then levelled, as the car entered Lansell Road. Wyatt counted heads: Frome driving, wife next to him, kids in the back. He checked the time—8 p.m.—and watched the BMA disappear in the direction of Toorak Road.

Paydirt.

Publisher’s description: This time it’s a payroll and bank run in the north of South Australia, an outpost town suddenly transformed by a pipeline construction project that brings petty crime, prostitution—and opportunity. It’s a town with its own secrets and Wyatt isn’t quick to trust at the best of times. But he’s on the run and he can’t afford to be choosy.

First paragraph: The work was dirty, the little town a joke, but Wyatt was interested only in the advantages—they didn’t know who he was, there were no cops, and no one was expecting a payroll snatch.

Deathdeal.

Publisher’s description: After the heists gone wrong in Kickback and Paydirt, Wyatt is further down on his luck and deeper in with the Outfit, a network of organised criminals whose attention he’s tried hard to avoid. A risky job in a Brisbane bank and the return of a femme fatale add further complications to Wyatt’s increasingly desperate situation and force him to decide who he is and who he cares about.

First paragraph: There were two of them and they came in hard and fast. They knew where the bed was and flanked it as Wyatt rolled onto his shoulder and grabbed at the backpack on the dusty carpet. He had his hand on the .38 in the side pocket and was swinging it up, finger tightening, when the cosh smacked across the back of his wrist. It was lead bound in cowhide and his arm went slack and useless. Then he felt it across his skull and he forgot about his hand and who the men were and how they’d known where to find him and everything else about it.

Crosskill.

Publisher’s description: Wyatt made some powerful enemies in his first three outings, and the time has come to confront them. But we know by now that Wyatt’s revenge won’t be showy, impetuous and futile; it will be pragmatic, elaborate—and still possibly futile. He holes up in Sydney, preparing to return home to Melbourne to play his enemies against each other in a dangerous double-cross that will tear down the notions of loyalty and obligation.

First paragraph: The stranger appeared just after lunch on day one of Wyatt’s operation against the Mesics. He was driving a red Capri, soft top down, and Wyatt watched him park it against the kerb, unfold from the car, stride to the compound gates and bend his face to the intercom grille in the brick pillar. MESIC was spelled out in shiny red tiles above the intercom and Wyatt saw the stranger touch the name as though to draw luck from it. Then the gates jerked, swung open, and the man stepped through the gap. He was about thirty, and he had the raw-nerved, hole-and-corner look of a man who exists on coffee and whispers. Wyatt put that together with the car, the costly jacket and the jeans, and speculated that here was someone who made profit for the Mesics and profited by them.

Publicity Push: Richard Laymon's Horror

Richard Laymon was unique voice in the horror genre. His work was always entertaining, but never for the faint of heart. It contained large doses of violence and sex often wrapped in a hard to define adolescent naiveté. He won the Bram Stoker for his excellent novel The Traveling Vampire Show, and his work brought me back to the horror genre fifteen years ago. My favorite of his novels are In the Dark, Night in the Lonesome October, Island, and One Rainy Night.  

“Laymon always takes it to the max. No one writes like him and you’re going to have a good time with anything he writes.” —Dean Koontz    

“If you’ve missed Laymon, you’ve missed a treat.” —Stephen King

“Laymon is Stephen King without a conscience.” – Dan J. Marlowe

Amazon is running a Halloween sale on several of Mr. Laymon’s ebooks through the month of October: $1.99 each. Below below are three of my favorite titles included in the sale. If you click the title of each novel you will be whisked to its Amazon page.

Among the Missing.

Publisher’s description: At 2:32 in the morning, a Jaguar roars along a lonely road high in the California mountains. Behind the wheel sits a beautiful woman wearing only a skimpy, revealing nightgown. She's left her husband behind. She's after a different kind of man—someone as wild, daring, and passionate as herself. The man she wants is waiting for her...with wild plans of his own.

First paragraph: When he heard the car, the man stood up. He brushed pine needles off the seat of his jeans, then hurried out of the forest and trotted down to the roadside. As he neared the moonlit pavement, headlights swept around a corner to the south. They were very low and very close together.

Body Rides.

Publisher’s description: Neal has been carrying a gun in his car lately—just to be safe. And it looks like it's a good thing he has. When he spots a woman tied naked to a tree and a man ready to kill her, he has no choice but to shoot the attacker. As a reward, the woman gives Neal something unimaginable.

Neal's reward is a bracelet. A very special bracelet. It enables its wearer to step inside other people, to see through their eyes, to feel whatever they feel. To take "body rides." But Neal has a big problem. The man he shot isn't dead. And he wants revenge. First he's going to finish what he started with the woman. Then he's going after Neal...

First paragraph: Neal Darden, alone in his car, took back roads to stay away from Robertson Boulevard. He wasn’t worried about too much traffic on Robertson; he was worried about getting shot for no good reason.

Resurrection Dreams.

Publisher’s description: Vicki was the only one to stand up for Melvin, but even she had to admit he'd gone too far when he dug up a body and then tried to bring it back to life with the aid of a car battery. Years later, and now released from a mental institution, Melvin is back and after Vicki - or rather her body.

First paragraph: That had to be Steve Kraft. It was Kraft’s blue Trans Am, the one his dad gave him when he threw six touchdown passes against the Bay last fall. So that had to be 

Publicity Push: The Robert Payne Novels

Ed Gorman is the definition of a professional writer. He has written dozens of novels in several genres—mystery, western, science fiction. His work has earned him The Eye for lifetime achievement from the Private Eye Writer’s Association, an Anthony, a Spur, and the International Writers Award.

In 1994 Mr. Gorman introduced a series character named Robert Payne—former FBI psychological profiler turned consultant—in Blood Moon. The series ran four books; each set in Iowa. Click the title of each book to be taken to its Amazon page.

“Crime writing veteran Gorman…evokes the closed-in atmosphere of small towns in this promising series launch that features modern psychological crime fighting by a winning detective.” –Publishers Weekly on Blood Moon

“Payne belongs to the hard-boiled detective school, but Gorman gives him an appealing softer side by detailing his loving relationship with live-in girlfriend Felice, by showing his attention to a young girl with cerebral palsy and by examining his ambivalent feelings for his dying stepfather. The prolific Gorman delivers another smooth page-turner with top-notch mystery production values.” –Publishers Weekly on Harlot’s Moon

Blood Moon.

Publisher’s description. Former FBI agent and psychological profiler Robert Payne is on the trail of a serial killer. A 12 year old girl has been murdered and mutilated, and the detective assigned to the case wound up dead. Now Nora Conners, the girl's wealthy mother, has hired Payne to solve the murder and bring closure. After narrowing his search to three men, a televangelist, a honey salesman, and an art teacher, all living in the small Iowa town of New Hope, Payne begins to narrow the field, posing as a journalist. That's just the start. As the daughter of one of the suspects joins the list of victims, and the woman who hired him is murdered, Payne finds himself on a race to solve the case before he himself is implicated.

First paragraph. First day of incarceration, there’s a killing.

Hawk Moon. 

Publisher’s description. Two beautiful Indian women are found dead with their noses cut off—an old Indian practice to punish infidelity—in this suspenseful second mystery by best-selling author Ed Gorman. The mutilation murders stun the quiet Iowa town of Cedar Rapids and call for the special skills of criminal psychologist Robert Payne, who uses clues from the crime scene to piece together a psychological portrait of the killer. The prime suspect is another Indian, David Rhodes, who is estranged from his wife, police detective Cindy Rhodes—and the woman with whom Payne is starting to fall in love.

First paragraph. Anna Tolan was helping her father shear sheep when she heard the woman’s cry on the wind across the cornfield.  

Harlot’s Moon.

Publisher’s description. Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A Catholic priest has been found half-naked and dead in a seedy motel room, with his tongue cut out. Ex-FBI profiler Robert Payne has been called in to investigate by his childhood friend Steve Gray, now a monsignor. With a fund-raising drive coming up, Steve wants to squelch a scandal. But all the signs point to unholy doings in the tightly knit parish.

Why did the pugnacious president of the Parish Board remove a gold earring from the scene of the crime? Was his beautiful blonde wife doing more than confessing to the profligate priest? And why was the dead priest hoarding newspaper stories about two other brutal murders? As Payne examines the evidence and pieces together the profile of a subtle and devious killer, it's clear that there will be hell to pay—with no end in sight...

First paragraph. So one night when she’s thirteen, Tawanna decides to give it a try for herself. She waits till after eight, till her mother’s done some dope and is sleeping in the bedroom.

Voodoo Moon.

Publisher’s description. Twenty-five years ago, in a small Iowa town, an asylum for the criminally insane burned to the ground, killing inmates and employees. The fire was set by Paul Renard, a sexual psychopath who escaped the blaze and disappeared. Today young Ricky Hennessey faces murder charges in the death of his girlfriend. His defense: Paul Renard did it. Legal investigator Robert Payne joins the case at the request of Tandy West, a cable TV psychic and Payne's former lover. She’s doing a piece on the Hennessey case for her show but has begun to question her gift and feels the need for Payne’s reality-based investigatory skills. With the assistance of the local police chief, Susan Charles, Payne learns that the past has invaded the future in a most unexpected way.

First paragraph. Way up here, at certain times of year, you can sometimes hear them screaming, more than twenty people who died in the asylum fire over thirty years ago.

Publicity Push: Mark Coggins' August Riordan Novels

Mark Coggins is a crime novelist who writes mysteries because “of [his] admiration for the work of Raymond Chandler.” His novel, The Immortal Game, the first to feature hardboiled private eye August Riordan, was selected as a top ten crime novel of the year by both the San Francisco Chronicle and Detroit Free Press. There have been five additional August Riordan novels published, and the most recent, No Hard Feelings, is available now.

Mr. Coggins writing, and the August Riordan series, have received critical praise—

“This third outing for Coggins’s private investigator August Riordan proves him a worthy successor to the iconic Sam Spade…[A] volume that fits comfortably alongside those of Hammett and Chandler. Highly recommended.”  —Library Journal on Candy from Strangers

“Riordan's deadly cat-and-mouse game involves surviving both the murderous intentions of members of Argentina's ruling class and the seductive advances of some beautiful Latin American women. First-person narrative, first-class yarn.” —Booklist review on The Big Wake-Up

The August Riordan novels are below—if you click the title you will be transported to each book’s Amazon page—with the publisher’s brief description and the first paragraph from each novel.

The Immortal Game.

Publisher’s description: When the world's most innovative computer chess software is stolen, wisecracking, jazz bass-playing PI August Riordan is hired to find it.

Sifting through a San Francisco peopled with bruising, ex-NFL henchmen, transvestite techno geeks, and alluring, drug-addicted dominatrices, Riordan has got his work cut out for him.

But with a smart-ass attitude like Riordan's, nothing is easy ...

First paragraph: The left front tire of my battered Ford Galaxie jolted into a pothole, and the last of my factory hubcaps popped off and went rolling down the slope behind me. I slowed the car to a stop and watched in the rear view mirror as the hubcap hit the shoulder of the road and bounced into the brush below. I had planned to use the hubcap with my silver tea service as a crumpet tray, but I could see now those plans were kaput.

Vulture Capital.

Publisher’s description: When venture capitalist Ted Valmont is belatedly informed that the Chief Scientist of NeuroStimix--a biotech firm in which he has invested--is missing, it's not just business, it's personal. Not only is the scientist an old school chum, but his disappearance jeopardizes the development of NeuroStimix's most important product: a device intended to aid spinal cord injury victims. Since Valmont's twin brother, Tim, was paralyzed in a college diving accident, finding the scientist and getting him back into harness is of the utmost importance to both brothers.

Valmont engages August Riordan to assist in the search and the men soon discover that the disappearance is part of a larger conspiracy to use NeuroStimix technology for perverse applications. And when a beautiful, mysterious young woman comes onto the scene, it's impossible to say whether the technology will provide the ultimate means to save them all or be the catalyst for tortuous, self-inflicted deaths…

First paragraph: KTVC was the station. Amelia Crenshaw was the reporter. Her producer, cameraman and the station van were arrayed along the narrow shoulder of Highway 280 while Amelia, microphone in hand, did a stand-up with the exit sign for Sand Hill Road looming behind her.

Candy from Strangers.

Publisher’s description:  Caroline Stockwell has a secret: she and her best friend Monica are “cam girls.”

Soliciting cash donations and gifts via Amazon.com wish lists from anonymous admirers, the young women have put up a web site featuring still photographs, video and blogs to help pay their way through art college. But when Caroline goes missing and her mother Ellen engages jazz bass-playing PI August Riordan to find her, Riordan discovers her secret and it appears to everyone that someone she met through the web site is responsible for her disappearance.

Set against the real-world backdrop of Internet predators using social networking sites like Facebook to find and ensnare their victims, Candy from Strangers is the first novel to explore the phenomenon of teenagers and young adults displaying themselves online in exchange for material favors—often without their parents' knowledge—which some are calling the newest form of prostitution.

First paragraph: When Henry Glover wrote It Ain’t the Meat (It’s the Motion) in 1952 for the King Records R&B group The Swallows, I’m sure he never anticipated the trouble it would cause. The Swallows had made a modest hit of the song, but the risqué lyrics and the fact that white kids weren’t buying many records from black groups limited its play. It took Chris Duckworth belting it half-century later to really do some damage.

Runoff. 

Publisher’s description: August Riordan—private investigator, jazz bass player, smart ass with a foolish heart—is going to find out. He's been hired by Leonora Lee, the all-powerful “Dragon Lady” of San Francisco's Chinatown, to investigate the results of the city's recent mayoral election. It seems the Dragon Lady's candidate failed to even carry the Chinese precincts, and she's convinced that someone must have rigged the outcome by hacking the city's newly installed touch-screen voting machines.

A runoff between the two remaining candidates is days away, but it takes Riordan mere hours to find the Director of Elections dead in his office. A visit to the offices of Columbia Voting Systems—the suppliers of the city's touch-screen machines—results in another corpse. A wide range of political interests share a stake in the election, so Riordan's got plenty of suspects.

First paragraph: I shouldn’t have been surprised when the backhoe materialized out of the Chinatown fog, ran onto the sidewalk and took out a column supporting the pagoda roof of the Bank of Canton. But I was.

The Big Wake-Up. 

Publisher’s description: The odyssey of María Eva Duarte de Perón—the Argentine first lady made famous in the play and the movie Evita—was as remarkable in death as it was in life. A few years after she succumbed to cervical cancer, her specially preserved body was taken by the military dictatorship that succeeded her deposed husband Juan. Hidden for sixteen years in Italy in a crypt under a false name, she was eventually exhumed and returned to Buenos Aires to be buried in an underground tomb said to be secure enough to withstand a nuclear attack.

Or was she?

When San Francisco private eye August Riordan engages in a flirtation with a beautiful university student from Buenos Aires, he witnesses her death in a tragic shooting and is drawn into mad hunt for Evita's remains. He needs all of his wits, his network of friends and associates, and an unexpected legacy from the dead father he has never known to help him survive the deadly intrigue between powerful Argentine movers and shakers, ex-military men, and a mysterious woman named Isis who is expert in ancient techniques of mummification.

First paragraph: ‘Are you hoping for a souvenir or checking to see if they’re your size?’

No Hard Feelings. 

Publisher’s description:  Winnie doesn’t remember the last time she felt anything below her neck. Her spine is severed at the seventh vertebrae, but thanks to implants from a sabotaged biomedical start-up, she has regained mobility. She is a prototype: a living, breathing—walking—demonstration of revolutionary technology that never made it to market.

Her disability has become her armor. Because she doesn’t register fatigue, she has trained relentlessly. Her hand, arm, and leg strength are off the scales for a woman, and she has honed self-defense techniques to channel that strength. She’s a modern-day Amazon who feels no pain.

When the sociopath who torpedoed the start-up sends killers to harvest the implants from her body, Winnie must team up with broken-down private investigator August Riordan to save both their lives—and derail sinister plans for perverse military applications of the technology.

First paragraph: When she got to San Francisco and found that August Riordan wasn’t there, she decided to kill herself. She took a cab from downtown to the Presidio and walked out on the Golden Gate Bridge. She went past the historical marker placed by the Native Sons of the Golden West, past the section of the walkway bordered by a chain-link fence, and onto the part where the only barrier between pedestrians and a two-hundred-fifty-foot drop was a chest-high railing.

Publicity Push: John Hegenberger's Elliot Cross Books

[Publicity Push highlights a book, or a series of books. It is intended to introduce something interesting and new—without the necessity of writing a specific review.]

John Hegenberger is making a splash in the crime community with two new books, both featuring private eye Eliot Cross. The first, Cross Examinations, is a collection of short stories, and the second, TRIPL3 CROSS, is a novel. The books have received critical praise—

“A great debut for a protagonist readers are sure to want to see more of!” —Wayne D. Dundee, on TRIPL3 CROSS

 “It’s a fast-moving tale of mystery and espionage that will engage you right from the start. Check it out.” —Bill Crider, on TRIPL3 CROSS

Cross Examinations is a prequel for TRIPL3 CROSS, and both are available at Amazon—click the titles and you will be transported to each books’ Amazon page. The novels are below with the publisher’s brief description and the first paragraph from each book.

Cross Examinations.

Publisher’s description: A series of serious crimes: Kidnapping. Murder. Art Thief. Blackmail. Comic Books.

Private Investigator Eliot Cross faces heartache, headache, backache, and a royal pain in the neck in these rollicking noir stores from the heart of the Heartland.

First paragraph: I hung a left and bounced into the lot of Bailey’s Quality Cars as the policeman jumped to his feet, waving his hands like a burning blind man. I stomped the brake, leaving the tail of my Dodge Charger out in the curb lane. [from the story “Headache”]

TRIPL3 CROSS.

Publisher’s description: It’s 1988, and small-town P.I. Eliot Cross is searching for his long-lost father. Then, a CIA informant says that Dad has been in deep cover for over twenty years. Now, the informant’s been murdered and Eliot is on the run.

Scrambling to clear his name, Eliot journeys from Washington D.C. to Havana, Cuba, struggling against deadly drug-runners, syndicate hit-men and his own violent nature. But the worst is yet to come, as Eliot discovers his father is at the center of an international conspiracy, a nuclear threat and a double cross...or is that a triple cross?

First paragraph: The new 1988 Ford van had been following me for days. I’d ducked it twice, but here it was coming up from behind me, a reverse image in my rearview mirror.

Mr. Hegenberger also has four novels scheduled for release later this year featuring L.A.P.I., Los Angeles Private Investigator, Stan Wade. The series will run at least four titles—Starfall, Superfall, Spyfall, and Stormfall. The first is scheduled for release in October. Mr. Hegenberger's website has a very nice description of each.

Publicity Push: Robert J. Randisi's Joe Keough Novels

[Publicity Push is a new feature highlighting a book, or a series of books. It is intended to introduce something interesting and new—without the necessity of writing a specific review.] 

Robert J. Randisi writes in both the Western and mystery genres. He writes, under the name J. R. Roberts, The Gunsmith adult Western series and The Rat Pack mystery series—featuring the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. in supporting roles. I previously reviewed two Rat Pack novels: Luck Be a Lady, Don’t Die and The Way You Die Tonight.  

In 1995 Mr. Randisi introduced a series character named Joe Keough—an NYPD homicide detective—in Alone with the Dead. The series ran five books, and Joe Keough, much like his creator, moved from New York to St. Louis for books two through five. The series has received critical praise—

“This is top-notch suspense, right from the chilling prologue to the brutal conclusion.” –Publishers Weekly on Alone with the Dead

“Another exceptionally entertaining and riveting mystery from genre stalwart Randisi.” –Booklist on East of the Arch

“Set in St Louis, this efficient, no-nonsense mystery doesn't waste a phrase or a plot turn.” –Publishers Weekly on Blood on the Arch

“Randisi also writes successful series featuring Miles Jacoby and Nick Delvecchio, but Keough--analytical, intelligent, and emotionally vulnerable--could easily become the author's most enduring, endearing character.” – Booklist on In the Shadow of the Arch

Perfect Crime Books reissued each of the Joe Keough novels in paperback and ebook editions. The ebook editions are a scant $2.99, which is well worth the high quality entertainment. The novels are below—if you click the title you will be transported to each book’s Amazon page—with the publisher’s brief description and the first paragraph from each novel.

Alone with the Dead.

Publisher’s description: New York cop Joe Keough races against time to crack the case of a serial killer who leaves a flower with each victim. Battling publicity-minded bureaucrats in his own department, Keough is convinced that he has to catch not one psycho but two . . . and the copycat killer is crazier than the original.

First paragraph: Kopykat opened the album.

In the Shadow of the Arch.

Publisher’s description: Joe Keough, a transplanted New York cop, signs on with a small St. Louis area police department just in time to track a psycho who chooses his victims from among young mothers frequenting local shopping malls. Meanwhile there is the perplexing case of a toddler who has walked into the police station leaving bloody footprints. So much for Keough's new life in the tranquil Midwest.

First paragraph: He picked summer to start, because the young mothers wore shorts and sundresses in the summer. They walked through the malls, thinking nothing of showing acres of firm, young flesh. In fact, he had one spotted right now. She was blond, in her twenties, walking through the mall holding a young child by the hand. The child was a girl, also blond, about six or seven.

Blood on the Arch.

Publisher’s description: When an influential politician and businessman is murdered, St. Louis police detective Joe Keough takes on a high-powered case that drags a lot of local dirt into the daylight. Dodging a trumped-up sexual harassment charge, Keough races to track down a professional assassin who has more targets on his to-do list--and to find the evil mastermind behind the bloodletting.

First paragraph: The sky was filled with kites of all sizes, shapes, and colors. It was the Forest Park Festival of Kites, the first one Keough had attended since moving to St. Louis a little over nine months ago.

East of the Arch.

Publisher’s description: A monstrous killer is piling up the bodies of pregnant women along the Mississippi, and St. Louis cop Joe Keough is saddled with a female clerk and a Mark Twain-quoting young sidekick as his "task force" as he sets out to stop the slaughter. Fighting him every step of the way are two Internal Affairs cops bent on destroying Keough's career regardless of the cost.

First paragraph: The Mississippi River annually deposits four hundred and six million tons of mud into the Gulf of Mexico, causing one famous riverboat captain to dub it “The Great Sewer.” It is then reasonable to assume that, should one dump a body into the river—a body that one did not want found—it would end up mixed in with all that mud, never to be seen again.

Arch Angels.

Publisher’s description: In the fifth Joe Keough mystery, Keough and his partner Harriet Connors working on a federal task force confront serial murders of children in Chicago and St. Louis. Is one killer at work or two? Keough and Connors plunge into a world of insanity and evil, and the clock is ticking.