I am a Canadian author of eleven mystery/thriller novels that combine suspense and humor, featuring unorthodox private detective Gabriel Ross. Pick a book from the series to step back in time to Biloxi, Mississippi, in the late '70s and early '80s. You'll get caught up in a fast-paced plot driven by compelling and unusual characters. There are elements of my books that I can directly attribute to the five books I've chosen.
It was a day hotter than the hinges of hell. A squadron of pelicans looked down in judgment and started squawking as I approached the blue Caprice in the deserted parking lot. I hadn't planned on being a detective. They don't teach you about guns or dead bodies in my accounting class. As I approached, I noticed the bullet-riddled trunk and figured I'd better get up to speed fast.
This is the 1st of two books by DeMille featuring wise-cracking lawyer John Sutton. Set on the ultra-affluent Gold coast of Long Island, DeMille masterfully plays up the romantic tension between Sutton and his wife while dealing with a mafia don who moves in next door. Lots of snappy dialogue and intrigue will keep you turning the pages.
The Great Gatsby meets The Godfather in this #1 New York Times bestselling story of friendship and seduction, love and betrayal.
"[Demille is] a true master." - Dan Brown, #1 bestselling author of The Da Vinci Code
Welcome to the fabled Gold Coast, that stretch on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America. Here two men are destined for an explosive collision: John Sutter, Wall Street lawyer, holding fast to a fading aristocratic legacy; and Frank Bellarosa, the Mafia don who seizes his piece of the staid and unprepared…
I read this book ages ago, but it is an excellent example of the type of book I write—a humorous mystery. Fletcher is an investigative reporter working undercover on the beach and assigned to write about the trafficking of illegal drugs. Instead, he's approached by a wealthy man making him an offer he can't refuse. However, he soon finds out that all is not as it seems.
Book one in the bestselling mystery series that brought to life an iconic literary antihero of subversion and schemes Fletch, investigative reporter extraordinaire, can’t be bothered with deadlines or expense-account budgets when it comes to getting his story.
Working undercover at the beach to dig up a drug-trafficking scheme for his next blockbuster piece, Fletch is invited into a much deeper narrative. Alan Stanwyk, CEO of Collins Aviation and all-around family man, mistakes the reporter for a strung-out vagabond and asks him for a favor: kill him and escape to Brazil with $50,000. Intrigued, Fletch can’t help but dig into…
A mysterious client approaches a tough-as-nails private investigator named Harry Angel. At first blush, it looks like a straightforward missing person's case. But as he starts peeling back the onion, Harry discovers a deeper mystery and a load of bad guys, murder, and voodoo. I recommend this book because of the author's hard-boiled writing style and how he describes the scenes.
An outstanding, spellbinding novel of murder, mystery and the occult, Falling Angel pits a tough New York private eye, Harry Angel against the most fearsome adversary a detective ever faced - one Louis Cyphre. For Angel a routine missing-persons case turns into a fiendish nightmare of voodoo and black magic, of dizzying peril and violent death - a world in which the shadow he chases seems to be the shadow he casts.
A legal thriller set in the Deep South deals with racism, distinguishing between what is legally justified and what is morally wrong. Racial tension and local corruption were the reasons I chose Biloxi as the setting for my novels. Grisham is a master storyteller who engages the reader from the first paragraph.
______________________________ THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLER
John Grisham's first and most shocking novel, adapted as a film starring Samuel L. Jackson and Matthew McConaughey
When Carl Lee Hailey guns down the violent racists who raped his ten-year-old daughter, the people of the small town of Clanton, Mississippi see it as justice done, and call for his acquittal.
But when extremists outside Clanton - including the KKK - hear that a black man has killed two white men, they invade the town, determined to destroy anything and anyone that opposes their sense of justice. A national media circus descends on Clanton.
This is the very first Lucas Davenport mystery (there are now 32 in the series). Davenport is a tough Minnesota cop on the trail of a diabolical serial killer. As a police procedural, it is accurate and fast-paced, with Sandford being an expert at keeping the reader engaged. Sandford is also the master of quips, snappy dialogue, and bad jokes. I picked this book as a template for a continuing crime series for my novels.
**Don't miss John Sandford's brand-new thriller Ocean Prey - out now**
#1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford's 'haunting, unforgettable, ice-blooded thriller' - first in the Lucas Davenport series!
The killer was mad but brilliant.
He left notes with every woman he killed. Rules of murder: Never have a motive. Never follow a discernible pattern. Never carry a weapon after it has been used...So many rules to his sick, violent games of death.
But Lucas Davenport, the cop who's out to get him, isn't playing by the rules.
Gabrielle found her grandfather’s diaries after her mother’s death, only to discover that he had been a Nazi. Born in Berlin in 1942, she and her mother fled the city in 1945, but Api, the one surviving male member of her family, stayed behind to work as a doctor in a city 90% destroyed.
Gabrielle retraces Api’s steps in the Berlin of the 21st century, torn between her love for the man who gave her the happiest years of her childhood and trying to come to terms with his Nazi membership, German guilt, and political responsibility.
Api's Berlin Diaries: My Quest to Understand My Grandfather's Nazi Past
"This is not a book I will forget any time soon."
Story Circle Book Reviews
Moving and provocative, Api's Berlin Diaries offers a personal perspective on the fall of Berlin 1945 and the far-reaching aftershocks of the Third Reich.
After her mother's death, Robinson was thrilled to find her beloved grandfather's war diaries-only to discover that he had been a Nazi.
The award-winning memoir shows Api, a doctor in Berlin, desperately trying to help the wounded in cellars without water or light. He himself was reduced to anxiety and despair, the daily diary his main refuge. As Robinson retraces Api's…
