Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Modern Detectives

The Dark Streets takes private investigator Jack Liffey to LA's glitzy, exotic Koreatown, where a young film student, Soon-Lin Kim, has apparently gone missing. Early in his search for her, Jack learns that Soon-Lin has been tangling with a giant Korean conglomerate. Again, as in all the Liffey mysteries, the superbly-crafted action that makes John Shannon one of the most exciting detective-fiction writers on the California scene envelops Jack, and ultimately he finds himself under torturously intense interrogation at the secret compound of a private security agency - and for a climax as explosive as the violent lightning storm in the desert sky.

Ex-cop Nick Jennings is struggling to survive a nasty fall from grace whenHolly Addison - reformed Vegas hooker and police informant - returns to town claiming someone is trying to kill her. Nick soon finds himself mixed up in a murder investigation involving the rich, the powerful, and the depraved, and it'll take everything he has in him to win with the hand he's been dealt.

A short story from the author of the #1 Amazon Legal Thriller, Trial Junkies.

John "Preacher" Holliman is one of the baddest bastards ever to ride a Harley. And when his girlfriend Lisa is brutally murdered, Preacher doesn't hesitate to break some heads to find out who killed her. The cops think he did it, but Preacher can't be bothered with them. He's too busy getting his revenge.

For small-town, Iowa lawyer, Sam McCain, the year 1965 is not a sweet one. His father is gravely ill. His elitist boss is just coming out of rehab. And, the brilliant lawyer he hoped to start a relationship with has gone back to her husband. Still, McCain tries to enjoy himself during the town's Labor Day weekend party, reuniting with several old friends - until two of them are murdered for what seems to be a motive buried in the past...

Laura and Sam are obsessed with film noir. In their sun-drenched apartment in Miami, they watch 1940's black and white movies, whose characters move in shadows and narrow slats of light. They're fascinated by a Hollywood genre without happy endings, where everyone is corrupt, where lovers betray one another, where the war might be over and the boys might be home, but where nothing is going back to the way it was.

A freelance film editor, Tracy Bateman goes where the work is. So when his old partner calls with an assignment, Tracy finds himself on a plane to Rome. But there are surprises waiting for him - deadly surprises that will lead him on a desperate chase across Europe, into the hands of a pair of brutal drug smugglers, and back to New York City, where the greatest betrayal of all awaits.…

Jersey Leo is the quintessential outsider - an albino of mixed race. Known as "Snowball" on the street, he makes a living as the bartender at a mob-run speakeasy in Prohibition-era Hell's Kitchen. Being neither black nor white, he has no group to call his own. His own mother abandoned him as a baby. And his father - a former boxing champ with his own secrets - disapproves of Jersey's work at a dive owned by one of New York's most notorious gangsters. So when he inadvertently purchases counterfeit moonshine ("sugar pop moon") with his boss's money - a potentially fatal mistake - he must go undercover to track down the bootlegger who took him in.

Conway Sax is a man seeking redemption. A man with a deeply checkered past currently paying for his sins by helping Gus Biletnikov stay sober. Wise-ass Gus, son of a wealthy investment banker, drives Conway nuts. But he also reminds him of his own estranged son, and so Conway finds himself deeply invested in his well-being. When a brutal triple-murder takes place in Gus's halfway house, Conway suspects Gus was the intended victim, and resolves to find the killer in his usual full-tilt, no-holds-barred fashion.

Mike Foley can never forget the night he tagged along with his brother on a job for the mob that ended in a hail of bullets. Now his brother is dead, Mike’s making wine in Oklahoma, and life is almost as good as it gets when you’ve been hiding out for 40 years. Until his past comes calling. Mike’s nephew Andrew needs to disappear, and he needs to do it yesterday. Hanging with the wrong kind of friends, he’s seen something he shouldn’t have, and now he’s running for his life with an assassin on his trail.

Myron Foote is a private investigator who has seen better days...but he drank them away. Now he’s in a dumpy office working bottom-of-the-barrel divorce cases...until a gorgeous redhead named Cynthia Thacketer walks into his life and offers him $105,000 to pose as her uncle Percy. It sounds simple. Too simple. But Foote is a man in need.

Sarah, nosy-but-nice English teaching fellow, and her husband, Alex, are at it again. Due to an unfortunate accident that incapacitates a friend, Sarah's abrasive aunt Julia is offered two free tickets with Whirlaway Tours. After much arguing and little listening, Sarah finds herself serving as Julia's companion for the trip. Eyebrows are raised, however, when the group meets in Boston's Logan Airport and Ellen Trevino, the tour's garden expert, doesn't show. Sarah begins to worry that Ellen's problem may be worse than a delayed connecting flight. As strange clues begin to pile up, Sarah calls home to ask Alex to follow up on Ellen's disappearance.

With his detective agency facing hard times, Charlie Bradshaw moonlights as night manager at a Saratoga Springs hotel. Victor, his partner, snaps pictures of the happy tourists. But not all the tourists are happy with this self-styled Saratoga Snapper. When one "candid" subject runs Victor down and steals his camera, Charlie gets caught up in a dangerous scheme worthy of Saratoga's colorful past. It proves that passions still roil in this quiet resort town.

Adam Jordan wrote the best and worst articles of his journalistic career on the same day. The worst was bad enough to get him fired - but the best landed him a new job, penning lurid articles for Real Detective magazine, one of the last of the true-crime pulps. Only the case they've got him working on, involving a beauty pageant contestant found dead on an Atlantic City beach, is one some very powerful men would rather see covered up than covered.

The second wacky comedic murder romp for Hollywood film detective Valentino. Valentino wants to keep The Oracle, his beloved run-down movie palace, from being condemned before it even reopens, but murder keeps intruding into his otherwise quiet life. At a gala party held in memory of screen legend Greta Garbo, he's having fun until the host, a hotshot developer named Rankin, tells Valentino about a certain letter from Garbo to his late wife. She and Garbo had been...close. Such a letter is of great interest to a film archivist like Valentino. But the plot thickens when Rankin tells Val that his assistant, Akers, is using this letter to blackmail him.

After six months of perfect weather, the people of Berkeley, California, have forgotten how to drive during a thunderstorm. Newly christened homicide detective Jill Smith is on her way home to a chocolate ice cream dinner when she gets caught in a traffic jam at the city’s only roundabout. At the front of the line, she sees the trouble: a flipped-over Cadillac and one dead driver. The man behind the wheel was one of the city’s leading citizens, a philanthropist in a town that puts charity first.

A call from an ex-husband is never welcome. For Berkeley cop Jill Smith it wins a Nobel Prize for chutzpah. Her ex wants a favor. His "friend" and co-worker, Anne Spaulding, is missing. Anne's ransacked apartment - complete with blood-sprayed walls - gives Jill the chilling feeling that her ex may be up to his arrogant neck in murder. Now Jill's out with the street people of Berkeley and the crazies of People's Park to uncover the fate of a welfare worker. But her best suspect is her ex: the former "significant other" who still pushes her buttons.

A town as diverse as Berkeley, California, is never without controversy. This year the uproar is over the Rainbow Village, a hippie-occupied bayside lot that has degenerated into a drug-infested cesspool. As the city tries to eject the squatters, two Grateful Dead fans are murdered and a developer is assaulted. But for homicide detective Jill Smith, the conflict at the Village is only a nuisance until the violence gets personal.

Until the helicopter crash, Jill Smith never knew fear. A homicide detective in the leftist enclave of Berkeley, California, she has faced down her share of thugs, thieves, and killers, but since surviving the downed helicopter, her nerves have been shot. Unwilling to submit to her anxiety, she goes back to work. The chef and owner of Paradise, an upscale restaurant in Berkeley’s so-called “Gourmet Ghetto,” is found on the floor of his own kitchen, poisoned by the soup he was seasoning.

When Philip Drem, the most feared and hated IRS auditor, is murdered, junk food junkie Jill Smith finds a long list of suspects among Berkeley's eclectic community.

In a city overwhelmed with murder and mayhem, the last homicide before a Category 5 hurricane wipes out New Orleans is quickly forgotten and remains unsolved. Until now.Calling to mind Chinatown’s Jake Gittes or Chandler’s Philip Marlowe comes a new kind of private detective - a mixed-martial arts coach and bare-knuckled former cop who investigates a curious missing persons/murder case.