Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Crime Fiction

Brad Sterling - former Harvard football player, ne¿er-do-well, and Susan Silverman's long out-of touch ex-husband, is by all appearances a successful businessman. But when, in the course of running a vast fundraiser called Galapalooza, he is charged with sexual harassment, he turns to Susan for help.

When the bride of a Boston police detective vanishes, he hires Spenser to find her. His path leads from a New England college campus to glamorous L.A. sports clubs. When the trail turns to a world of prostitution, drug abuse, and self-destruction, Spenser must enter ghetto tenements to continue his search. Ultimately, Spenser must hire a Chicago hitman to help him free the girl from a sociopathic ex lover.

Ironworker Wayne Colson and his spirited wife Carmen are witnesses to a shakedown scam — witnesses who must be eliminated. Enter Armand Degas (a.k.a. Blackbird), the brains of the operation, and his partner Richie Nix, an ex-con whose highest goal is to rob a bank in every state. After the Colsons enter the Federal Witness Security Program, a lively chase ensues — with two bumbling but determined killers on Wayne and Carmen's trail.

The first entry in Leslie Stewart's diary read: "Dear Diary; This morning I met the man I am going to marry." It was simple, optimistic statement, without the slightest portent of the dramatic chain of events that was about to occur. The Best Laid Plans takes listeners inside two of America's most powerful and ruthless institutions: the world of politics with it's scandals, corruption, and cover-ups; and that of newspaper publishing, where it is not unusual to use the power of the press to destroy lives - or bring down heads of state - in pursuit of a story or to settle a score.

Ten years ago, Paul Giacomin's corrupt father and loose mother used the boys as a pawn in their violent race: Only Spenser could call them off and straighten out the misled teen—almost getting killed in the process. Paul is now 24 and reconciled to his mother's wanton ways. But when Patty Giacomin vanishes, Paul begs Spenser to help him rescue her from the clutches of her boyfriend, a shady character he's sure coerced his mother into running.

The local cops haven't seen anything like this, but Jesse's L.A. past has made him all too familiar with floaters. This girl hadn't committed suicide; she hadn't been drowned; she'd been shot and dumped, discarded like trash. Before long it becomes clear that she had a taste for the wild life; and her own parents can't be bothered to report her missing, or even admit that she once was a child of theirs. All Jesse has to go on is a young man's school ring on a gold chain, and a hunch or two.

Ellis Alves is no angel. But his lawyer says he was framed for the murder of college student Melissa Henderson...and asks Spenser for help.

The Sternwood family, immortalized in The Big Sleep, is in trouble again. Lovely Vivian's psychotic sister, Carmen, has disappeared from the sanitarium, and Vivian herself has once again fallen into the clutches of the shady underworld character Eddie Mars. Enter Philip Marlowe, the original tough-but-tender private eye, resurrected by Robert B. Parker, creator of his own phenomenally popular Spenser mystery series.

The hardworking single mother of young daughter, Joanna Brady still feels the acute pain of loneliness and loss, the hole that was left in her heart when her policeman husband was murdered. But Sheriff Brady is the law in Cochise County, and murder has shattered the small town's fragile peace. A local gun dealer has died violently, and his stock of high-powered weapons has been cleared out. When two more slayings follow soon after, suspicion falls upon rancher Alton Hosfield.

Lonely Iris Courtney learns about life in the small town of Hammond, New York, where blacks and whites live separate lives. She learns of love from her parents—hard-drinking, hard-living Duke Courtney and his stormy marriage with the lovely but troubled Persia Courtney. But Iris learns most from Verlyn "Jinx" Fairchild, star of the basketball courts, his hopes for a way out of Hammond pinned to a college scholarship.

An exciting mystery anthology of short stories by assorted writers including Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton.

Raised in a world of flimflams, come-ons, and con-jobs, Beano Bates has done so well he's earned a spot on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. But his lucky streak vanishes after a card game in which he scams a cool eighty grand from a notorious Mafia don—who retaliates by having Beano nearly beaten to death. For the first time in his legendary career, Beano wants more than a big score—he wants justice.

Tracy Whitney is on top of the world. Young, beautiful, and intelligent, she is about to marry into wealth and glamour—until a ruthless mafia gang frames her, and she is sentenced to prison. Though beaten and broken, Tracy emerges from her savage ordeal determined to avenge herself against those who have destroyed her life. With dazzling ingenuity, she embarks on a series of extraordinary escapades across the globe, as she plays for the highest stakes in a deadly game. Only one man can challenge her—a man handsome, persuasive, and every bit as daring as Tracy.

Heroine and renowned FBI profiler Karen Vail returns in an explosive thriller set against the backdrop of California's wine country. Hoping to find solace from the demons that haunt her, Vail makes her first trip to the Napa Valley. But shortly after arriving, a victim is found in the deepest reaches of an exclusive wine cave, the work of an extraordinarily unpredictable serial killer.

Porter Wren makes a living sifting through the debris of New York's most horrific murders and sensational crimes, searching for the twist that the beat reporters missed, the illuminating irony, the romantic detail that adds meaning to the relentless wreckage of human appetite and folly. Devoted to his wife and two children, why then does Porter telephone his wife and lie about his plans for the evening, minutes before he finds himself in the Fifth Avenue apartment of a beautiful woman with a story to tell?

What would it take to lure a serious young newswoman from a respectable New England paper to the most notorious supermarket tabloid in America? The call of journalistic adventure? How about a promise of a salary that's triple what she's making? En route to her new job at the Weekly Galaxy, Sara Joslyn stumbles across a bloody corpse in a Buick Riviera. A big story? Not at this paper. The problem is compounded when the dead man vanishes, Buick and all.

It's not Carmen Colson and her ironworker husband Wayne's fault that they were in the real estate office when a pair of thugs walked in with extortion on their minds. But as far as aging Ojibway Indian hitman Armand Degas is concerned, the Colsons are going to have to pay dearly for seeing too much, and for the damage Wayne inflicted on Armand and his sicko partner Richie Nix with a tire iron.

Shadowy and well-financed interests need a resourceful and gutsy team to engineer the transfer of funds to fund a revolt against a new government. And what a team it is! There's Booth Stallings, a terrorism expert, the only man the rebel leader trusts as a liaison. And there's Georgia Blue, a colorful statuesque lady bodyguard. Their point man: Otherguy Overby, so called for his skill in making sure whenever he's in trouble, that the other guy did it.

This is the story of best friends - brothers, really - Paulie and Vincent, who grew up without fathers on Chicago’s southside. Paulie learns how to be a man from TV cop shows, while Vincent's role models are the wise guys on street corners. Paulie joins the FBI with hopes to escape his past, while Vincent becomes a private investigator who works for the “family” business. When the two men reconcile, they are torn between devotion to each other and loyalty to their respective organizations.

On one fateful day in Britain, fortunes change hands as a suicidal Junior Minister, an avaricious tycoon, and a seasoned criminal all play parts in a scheme that moves paper money around at a dizzying pace. Meanwhile, an ambitious young reporter for the Evening Post scrambles to crack the story. This early novel from Ken Follett, the author of On Wings of Eagles and The Key to Rebecca, plunges the reader into the worlds of crime, high finance, and journalism on the way to a masterfully plotted dramatic climax.