First Mystery

Here, for your approval, are the first 15 Matt Cooper, P.I. stories in the collection of 420 stories. These 15 take place in the mid-to-late 1940s, and show the beginnings of Cooper Investigations.

He’s used to catching crooks, not proving their innocence. Can this Hawaiian investigator say aloha to the real killer? Edgar Allan “Poe” Rutherford knows his personal connection to a crime boss is wrong. But when she needs his PI expertise to solve a reopened cold case, he can’t refuse the woman who feels like family. The only catch...the police are convinced she’s the murderer.

When techno genius Nola Billingsley finds her former employee, an amoral creep who stole secrets, murdered, she doesn’t exactly shed tears. Instead, she begins a flirtation with the inspector assigned to the case. With her shorthaired pointer Skootch watching her back, Nola and her group of techno pals try to help solve the murder, bringing into play Nola’s feisty feminism and idealism, and putting both her life and her love affair at risk.

When Harley’s new boyfriend invites her to a weekend at his family's country house, she accepts, game for an adventure. But the estate has a sinister history. Harley knows about the murder suicide that happened in the kitchen; the other stories might just be rumors.

Half a million dollars in drug proceeds, guarded by three men with automatic weapons - for professional thief Crissa Stone and her team, stealing it was the easy part. But when the split goes awry in a blaze of gunfire, Crissa finds herself on the run with a duffel bag full of stolen cash, bound by a promise to deliver part of the take to the needy family of one of her slain partners.

Now available in audio, originally published in the Boston Globe Magazine, a short story featuring award-winning author Linda Barnes’ feisty, redheaded, cab-driving, ex-cop private investigator, Carlotta Carlyle. On a great day to take in a ball game at Fenway, a seemingly harmless run-in with a familiar petty thief throws Carlotta into a wild chase through the park that turns up something far more interesting than the final score.

Mysterious man in first-class has a mystery he is carrying to the United States.

Thousands of people have seen UFOs over the years, many of them respected observers, including airline pilots, scientists and police officers. Those UFOs couldn’t all have been the planet Venus or weather balloons, no matter what the government said at the time—and it’s all in this book.

At the start of a new century, a shocking murder transfixes Manhattan, forcing bitter rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr to work together to save a man from the gallows. Just before Christmas 1799, Elma Sands slips out of her Quaker cousin’s boarding house—and doesn’t come home. Has she eloped? Run away? No one knows—until her body appears in the Manhattan Well. Her family insists they know who killed her. Handbills circulate around the city accusing a carpenter named Levi Weeks of seducing and murdering Elma. But privately, quietly, Levi’s wealthy brother calls in a special favor.

Drunken Rampage! is one of the most hilarious books ever written. This is an incredibly thrilling, mysterious, and magnificent book. It educates people about dangerous drunk drivers, and how unpredictable they are to everyone and everything in society. Never before has anyone told such a amazing story like the author The Chicago North Star has. A must-listen for all. Warning! Do not try and listen to this awesome, hilarious book while driving.

Retired colonel Tucker Petersen is suddenly recalled to active duty and put in charge of the Salvage-5 mining/recovery mission. Tucker travels with his crew to discover what went wrong with the CSMO mining dredge at 15 Eunomia. What they find will change their lives forever.

Erik Ashendale sees himself as a hero. Desperate to distance himself from his terrible childhood and evil twin sister, the professional monster hunter just wants to do some good. So he buckles down when an angel whispers in his ear requesting protection for a succubus targeted by his sinister sibling.

Seth is laid off from work. His wife Lara just found out they are expecting a baby this summer. Seth plans on documenting the entire pregnancy with his brand new digital camcorder. During an evening home watching television, the news reports that a swarm of cicada (Brood Ten) are expected to overwhelm the entire Northeast. Brood Ten is vicious and ready to invade.

A freelance writer is invited to an elderly man's home to witness his telling of the family history to his sons. The patriarch's reason for requesting a stranger into his home as he shares his tale is a simple one. He wants the young man to write the true history of Family Dracul, to trace the lineage back to the very first member of a family cursed. But, the old man has another agenda. He wants to warn humanity; what happened in the past was nothing compared to what is to come.

A husband armed with a sword hacks apart his wife in a Denver grocery store. There are dozens of witnesses, and the crime is captured on the security cameras. To the police, it's an open-and-shut case. To Naomi, the daughter of the couple, it's evidence of dark magic. She hires her ex-lover, a private investigator named Jonathan Shade to prove her father is innocent.

A year after her husband's death, young widow and art collector Diana Porteous listlessly roams the beach near her home. Her friend and agent Saul takes action, introducing her to his stylish, anarchic sister, Sarah, to pep her up. They plan that Di should rediscover her talents as a thief, as well as art expert, to recover stolen paintings - and begin with Steven, the neighbour's son, who is amassing works of art in a strange building in London, including work stolen from his mother.

Severely injured and left for dead in Afghanistan after a routine reconnaissance mission went disastrously wrong, Marine Sergeant Nathan Profit endured two years of unimaginable hell at the hands of his insurgent captors. Nathan returns to the United States a very different man. Angry and hostile at losing everything in his life during his captivity, he begins to plot his revenge against the armed forces and country that abandoned him.

Following a horrific murder in a sleepy suburb of York, a local journalist receives a cryptic clue from someone claiming to be the killer. The clue hints at where the next murder will take place. Teaming up with the senior investigating officer, Gene Garland, they discover the clue is genuine. They face a race against the clock to stop a sadistic killer....

Death hits close to home for Elizabeth “E. M.” Danniher - or, rather, close to Hovel, as she's dubbed her decrepit rental house in rustic Sherman, Wyoming. Her elderly neighbor has killed a man apparently after her Western artifacts. As a former top-flight national TV reporter, Elizabeth knows self-defense can satisfy the legal system, yet leave her neighbor in danger. Doing what she does best - asking questions - Elizabeth sidesteps her boss to inquire into an eccentric billionaire.

Matt Cooper - First Cases consists of three short stories.