Showing results by author "John Lutz" in All Categories

Wilson Capp is an honorable man in a dishonorable profession. While the others involved in the notorious Gateway scandal that toppled a president told all and made their fortunes, Wilson Capp kept the faith, kept his silence...and was rewarded with prison. Now Wilson Capp is free. And he's out to make his former associates pay the ultimate price for their betrayal.

What was once New York's proudest skyscraper is now a heap of ruins, littered with the bodies of the dead and the dying. Beyond it, like firecrackers on a string, the rest of the targets wait to be ignited, unless the demands of the Jericho Man are met.

Thirty-five short stories by Edgar-winning novelist Lutz are included here, following a perceptive introduction by Nevins. Reflecting the ingenious plotting and characterizations in Tropical Heat, Nightlines and the author's other full-length adventures, these entries are a bonanza for discriminating listeners.

Frank Quinn is sure he is hunting for a madman: someone who is shooting young women in the heart, defiling their bodies, leaving only the torsos to be found. But in the concrete canyons of New York, this shocking serial murder case is turning into something very different. Struggling against a death trap closing in around her, Jill Clark has a powerful ally in Frank Quinn. But no one knows the true motives behind a rampage of cold-blooded murder or how much more terrifying this is going to get.

A serial killer is on the loose, a maniac wielding a homemade flame thrower fashioned from a scuba tank. He has murdered three people - and one of them is private detective Fred Carver's eight-year-old son. Carver will do anything to find his son's killer and exact a father's revenge.

John Lutz is fascinated by the nighttime dangers that await women alone. In The Night Spider, he improvises a new variation on this theme with a thriller about a serial killer who preys upon women living in high-rises. With few visible means of entry, the mysterious stalker kills women while they sleep in their beds behind securely locked doors.

Twelve tales of mystery from the pen of best-selling author John Lutz, Shadows Everywhere collects much of the author's early work. You'll meet everyone from a “hardscrabble farm woman” to a volatile trucker with an explosive cargo, a cliff driver with dreams of gold, and women who are digging for it. Not every PI is a good guy, and not every villain gets his due. These tales twist and turn, surprise and entertain. Flowing from the imagination of a master story-teller, the stories in Shadows Everywhere are a classic glimpse into the worlds of a rare talent.

He comes out when the sun goes down. He delivers death from the barrel of a rifle. He's made New York City his shooting gallery. Men and women, natives and tourists, young and old, have all been his victims. The press has named him The Night Sniper. He taunts those who would try to stop him, threatening to increase the body count unless legendary retired homicide detective Vin Repetto is willing to engage him in a lethal game of cat and mouse.

Ezekiel "Coop" Cooper is lonely. He's no longer with the NYPD due to cancer that's in remission. His daughter Bette is in New Jersey, and he doesn't talk with her about anything personal, but he loves her. He's looking forward to seeing her at the family bungalow, but when he gets there, he finds her dead, curled up in a way that suggests a ritual murder.

A major casino robbery turns sour when the getaway car breaks down in the desert. The robbers come across a nearby cabin but it is inhabited by an old loner. The three robbers try and hold him hostage, but he escapes. It becomes their biggest mistake.

Twenty-Seven short stories from Edgar Award-winning author John Lutz. Private Eyes, mysteries, and memorable characters.

The killer's depravity is insatiable. What he does to his victims is unthinkable. Homicide detective turned P.I. Frank Quinn has seen this M.O. before. A demented ritual, it's the work of Daniel Danielle - a notorious serial killer who blurs the line between male and female, human and monster. Danielle disappeared ten years ago. Is a copy cat repeating the crimes? Or has Danielle made a deadly return? Either way, this time the killing won't stop....

Homicide detective Frank Quinn can't stay retired when a new breed of murdering madman is on the prowl. In a city terrorized by bloody brutality, Quinn and his team hunt a psychopath who lures beautiful women into a night of unbridled passion, then wakes them to a vicious, drawn-out death. Stumbling over a trail of horribly defiled bodies, Quinn can't seem to catch up to the killer - because the killer is about to catch up to him.

Fred Carver is hired by his good friend, Lieutenant Alfonso DeSoto of the Orlando police, to investigate the death of his uncle at Sunhaven, a local nursing home. Carver is harassed by Raphael Ortiz, a viciously depraved thug bent on discouraging Carver from investigating Sunhaven.

When the men find him, the boy’s legs look like they were run through a wood-chipper. He’s bleeding heavily and near death, but he still has strength to tell them of the monster that attacked him: a dark, massive creature that emerged from the bottom of the lake. The child dies before he can say more. Sheriff Billy Wintone has seen too much superstition, drunkenness, and rage in this small Ozarks town to believe the delirious boy’s tale of a monster lurking under the lake’s dark waters. Like it or not, however, Wintone must scour the woods for the man or beast who killed the child before the start of fishing season.

A beautiful jogger, drained of blood, dismembered, then meticulously reassembled on the grass in Central Park. Subway derailments, plummeting elevators, collapsing construction cranes, apartment explosions - all creating a bloody, senseless puzzle.

No one thought Curtis Colt had been railroaded for the shooting of a liquor store owner, least of all St. Louis private investigator Alo Nudger. It had been an open-and-shut case of cold blooded murder, and the people of Missouri were just waiting for Colt to be strapped into the electric chair - after all, three eyewitnesses couldn't be wrong. But as time runs out on the convicted killer, Nudger receives a call from Candy Ann Adams, Colt's finance, who insists he's innocent, because she knows who really pulled the trigger.

Martin Karpp was Alan Hobson, a compulsive thief. He was Willy Bennet, a flagrant homosexual. He was Jay Jefferson, a fanatic right-winger. He was Paul Liggett, who hid his true nature behind a mask of mystery. Martin Karpp was in the nation's top maximum security prison, convicted of assassinating a presidential candidate. That should have been the last the world would ever have to fear from this madman and his many personalities.

Along a beautiful stretch of beach sits a state institution for the criminally insane. Among its inmates are a man who killed his wife with a wine bottle; an ex-butcher who put strange substances into meat; and a man who pushed his daughter out of a 40-story window. When an inmate is found dead on the beach, the rest of the men eye each other coldly - for each of them had a motive to murder the unpopular victim.

She was gagged. Violated. Tortured. Nailing the killer is priority number one and only the best will do-that means Frank Quinn. And Quinn wouldn't want it any other way. Because he recognizes the victim. Years ago, as a homicide detective, he saved her young life. Now the hunt is on, and deep in his gut, Quinn welcomes it. He knows he's seeing the work of a truly twisted serial killer.