Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Modern Detectives

Longtime character actor Clive Rosengren ( Cheers, Seinfeld, Ed Wood) pens a sprightly tale of Hollywood sex and homicide in Murder Unscripted. No one is going to mistake part-time actor, part-time Hollywood sleuth Eddie Collins for a movie star. While shooting a television commercial for Chubby’s Chicken, Eddie is almost relieved when he gets a call from a motion-picture bonding company on the hook for an uncompleted film whose female lead has died. That would be bad enough, but things get worse when Eddie finds out that the dead actress is his ex-wife - and her death looks like murder.

Matthew Scudder, his wife, Elaine, Mick Ballou, and Mick's new wife sit around a table in Mick's Hell's Kitchen saloon for one last night of stories before the building is transferred to its new owners.

Working late-night surveillance at a luxury condominium development in a city world famous for corruption, Chicago private detective Joe Kozmarski encounters a burglary crew. Two of the crew members show up in a police cruiser. In the chaos that follows, Kozmarski shoots and kills a thief, who is also one of Chicago’s finest. Kozmarski is in for many a bad night’s sleep.

In A Corpse in the Koryo, James Church introduced readers to one of the most unique detectives to appear in print in years—the elusive Inspector O. The stunning mystery was named one of the best mystery/thrillers of 2006 by the Chicago Tribune for its beautifully spare prose and layered descriptions of a terrain Church knows by heart.

And now the inspector is back.

A phone ringing after midnight means trouble, especially in private eye Harry Stoner's business. This time the 1:30 call is trouble, all right. A motel clerk wants somebody to pick up the loser registered as Harry Stoner who just tried to kill himself. When the real Stoner gets to the Encantada Motel, he finds his old college roommate nearly dead and too many memories still alive.

Nashville private investigator Jared McKean has a son with Down syndrome, a best friend with AIDS, an ex-wife he can’t seem to fall out of love with, and a weakness for women in jeopardy - until one frames him for murder. His DNA and fingerprints are found at the murder scene, his voice is on the victim’s answering machine, and the victim was killed with a bullet from his gun.

The critically acclaimed A Corpse in the Koryo brought readers into the enigmatic workings of North Korean intelligence with the introduction of a new kind of detective—the mysterious Inspector O. In the follow-up, Hidden Moon, O threaded his way through the minefield of North Korean ministries into a larger conspiracy he was never supposed to touch.

Russell Mullins has left intelligence work. When his wife died of cancer, Rusty quit the Secret Service to repurpose his life. He joins a private protection company in Washington, DC, and is assigned to guard Paul Luguire, a Federal Reserve executive and chief liaison with the US Treasury. Mullins and Luguire form a strong friendship. So when a police detective calls in the middle of the night with word of Luguire’s suicide, Mullins doesn’t buy it.

His doubts are reinforced by Amanda Church, a former Secret Service colleague now in the Federal Reserve’s cybersecurity unit. She uncovered a suspicious financial transaction initiated by Luguire only days before his death.

Willie Black knew he had a father, even if he didn't know where he was buried. It wasn't like Artie Lee gave his son anything but his genes. He died when Willie was 15 months old, and Artie and Peggy never married. They couldn't have, in the segregated commonwealth of Virginia in 1960. Then, in January of 2018, Artie Lee, dead almost 57 years, reinserts himself into his son's life. Philomena Slade calls Willie, the mixed-race night-cops reporter for the local daily rag, to her death bed to ask him a favor he can't refuse: Keep Artie's grave clean.

When newly divorced Sage arrives in Bali, his only plan is to drink on the beach until his money runs out and then return home to start over. So he's caught by surprise when he falls in love with the country and its people, particularly the attractive and considerate Ratri. Soon Sage can no longer see himself living anywhere else, even as his funds dwindle and his visa's expiration date nears. Increasingly desperate to stay with Ratri, Sage finds himself being recruited by a drug-smuggling ring - in a country where drug trafficking is punishable by death.