Crime Town

In 1974, at the age of 14, I was abducted, beaten and raped in my hometown of Lincoln, Rhode Island by a recidivist, pedophile predator. He was arrested and indicted but never went to trial. He never went to trial because he was brutally beaten to death in the streets of Providence before his court date. Thirty-eight years after his murder, no one has ever been charged with the crime. Men in My Town is my personal story. It's a gripping suspense novel with a storyline that includes characters based on real people, real places and real events. It's a story about men in my neighborhood, men who watched over me during the time between my assault and my assailant's murder.

School is out in the summer of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. For Frances Robinson, a 15-year-old daydreamer with a crush on her teacher, John T. Scopes, summer vacation promises tennis and Coca-Colas from her father's drug store. But when Frances' father, the school board chairman, has Scopes arrested for teaching evolution, the sleepiest place on earth becomes a hotbed for famous thinkers, including H.L. Mencken, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan.

Jack Barnett has had it with the private eye business. They took his license away in LA, and fearing criminal prosecution, he split town in the middle of the night and headed for Las Vegas, where anyone can become anonymous. He swears off the business, but his money runs low and when a man offers him $5000 to find his missing daughter, he agrees. He soon wishes he hadn't when the haunting memory of a woman from his past gets in the way.

In trouble more often than not, guilty of assault, manslaughter, and honorably discharged from the military by the skin of his teeth, David "Bugs" McKenna can't seem to help doing the right thing at the wrong time - or the wrong thing, every chance he gets. But when he drifts his way into Ragtown, Texas, things seem to finally be turning around for Bugs. Still, things are likely to get ugly, fast - and odds are, it'll have something to do with the bombshell wife of Bugs' new employer....

Desert Town is dark crime fiction for those who have a taste for the perverse and violent. It was made into a major film, Desert Fury, starring Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott and Mary Astor. It’s the story of seventeen year old Paula Haller’s transition into womanhood as she defies her mother, Fritzi’s dominance. Fritzi runs the small town of Chuckawalla including the Purple Sage casino and saloon as well as a bordello or two.

Feeling oppressed by their economic and social status, the three Duntz brothers seek revenge on the wealthy upper class, and historical Salisbury becomes their target. The brothers set fire to the Salisbury town hall, a 235-year-old symbol of the town's proud heritage. But when Earl Morey confesses to seeing one of the brothers commit the crime, he is found shot to death one early October morning.

The wife of popular Florida Congressman (and prospective Senatorial candidate) Clegg Caffery is murdered. FBI Special Agent Matt Thurston begins an investigation that leads him from the Pentagon to the small town of Clewiston, Florida, in search of a photographer responsible for the photo found in the murdered woman's hand. He arrives too late. The man has committed suicide.

When crime-fighting attorney Albert Patterson is gunned down in a Phenix City, Alabama, alley in the spring of 1954, the entire town seems to pause for just a moment—and when it starts up again, there is something different about it. A small group of men meet and decide they have had enough, but what that means and where it will take them is something they could not have foreseen.

As lawman, rancher, and Korean War veteran, Ty Dawson has his share of problems in the southern Oregon county he calls home. Despite how rural it is, Meriwether can't keep modernity at bay. The 1970s have changed the United States—and Meriwether won't be spared. A standoff looms when the US Fish & Wildlife Service seeks to separate longtime cattleman KC Sheridan from his water supply—ensuring the death of his livestock. If that's not enough trouble, a Portland detective is found dead in a fly-fishing resort cabin.

Set in 1959, the year the music died, The Smoke in Our Eyes is a cinematic, clock-ticking saga set in a small Montana town. When a fatal car accident shatters ten-year-old Lucas's world, he finds himself confronting crime and vengeance, humor and heroism, all against the backdrop of growing up.

When builder Mark Poynter discovers a murder on his worksite all of his financial problems suddenly seem a lot closer to home: was this a warning his debts are overdue? Suspected of being the killer and worried at being the intended victim, the murder only makes Mark's money problems worse, leading him to turn to the local villain, Hamlet, who has his own unique repayment plan in mind for Mark. When two more deaths plunge him even further into debt, Mark finds himself faced with a choice - help the police and clear his name or help the villain and clear his debt.

Natasha Bell was a juvenile delinquent. Years later, she harbors a dark secret from her youth. She never expects to work at a place like the Trevino Center for Health and Wellness, a secluded rehabilitation hospital that treats the nation’s richest patients. But when patients mysteriously die, leaving their fortunes to the elusive Trevino family, Natasha must confront her past and uncover the scam inside the Center.

Peace was always an elusive thing for Detective Carter Boyce, even before his wife died. Since then, living has become even harder. Now, investigating what looks like a murder suicide, Carter begins piecing back together a life he didn’t even know was broken. He stumbles back into his childhood neighborhood, where Old Man Kopchek is still missing a leg, but none of his acerbic wit. The old man begins teaching him the magic of savoring the mundane and the seemingly unimportant.

Old secrets. Missing teenagers. In this small island town, something horrifying is afoot. A mysterious young girl seems to bring out powerful abilities in Emma's special-needs son. As she combs her small Danish island for clues about both mysteries, she realizes the killer and the strange girl are somehow connected. Before the killer strikes again, Emma must risk it all to uncover the frightening truth about what lies beneath her isolated island home.

Knox Thompson thinks he's working a hustle, but it's a hustle that's working him. Trying to keep his pizza shop and parents afloat, he cleans out a backroom Kentucky poker game only to be roped into dealing marijuana by the proprietor—an arrangement Knox only halfheartedly resists. Knox's shop makes the perfect front for a marijuana operation, but his supplier turns out to be violent and calculating, and Knox ends up under his thumb. It's not long before more than just the pizza shop is at risk.

Zahn can't get the missing girl he found—and the one he can't find—out of his mind. Someone in this mountain valley is collecting children, and Zahn is gradually drawn into the case while still trying to break through to his daughter. Then she disappears too.

Young lawyer Holly Park is hired to defend teenager Naomi Linser - charged with murder in the stabbing death of the local councilman. The crime takes place in a gritty Koreatown "room salon" with Naomi holding the murder weapon. The case is tried in the LA media, and everyone takes sides. The deeper Holly digs, the darker the secrets become. Holly risks everything to find the truth, only to learn that if she reveals it, Naomi goes to prison for life. If Holly keeps the secret, then Naomi may walk, but Holly will have betrayed her lover.

A small-town lawyer takes on an unpopular murder case that leaves her client in fear for his life. With the sheriff refusing to investigate any further and her client facing a second degree murder charge, Janice Berne discovers secrets lurking in her town of Connerston, Indiana. With her paralegal, Andy, and private investigator, Justin, she seeks out the truth before Stevie Evans' time runs out.

Greta Pugh is dead. The small village of Bethesda, Wales, is no stranger to tragedy. Once a thriving, prosperous community, the town has been marred by an ever-deepening class divide. But now, with rich and popular Greta Pugh found murdered in the local quarry, everyone in Bethesda is rattled, and all their secrets are at risk.

When the local bus company announces it will be stopping its route through their quaint Cotswold village, the people of Wendlebury Barrow are up in arms. Not least Sophie Sayers, whose driving lessons with her boyfriend Hector get off to a bumpy start. But the locals’ peaceful protests against the decision turn deadly when a body is discovered on the Number 27. No one can work out how a passenger met their demise, let alone how the driver didn’t notice. While the police wait for the post mortem results, Sophie immediately suspects foul play, and launches her own investigation.