Hit-and-run is a grisly crime, no matter who is involved. This was one of the worst, with a beautiful girl for the victim — and a beautiful girl for the driver.

Jack McEvoy is a reporter with a track record in finding killers. But he’s never been accused of being one himself.

Jack went on one date with Tina Portrero. The next thing he knows, the police are at his house telling Jack he’s a suspect in her murder.

Maybe it’s because he doesn’t like being accused of a crime he didn’t commit. Or maybe it’s because the method of her murder is so chilling that he can’t get it out of his head.

But as he uses his journalistic skills to open doors closed to the police, Jack walks a thin line between suspect and detective — between investigation and obsession — on the trail of a killer who knows his victims better than they know themselves...

A good cop never managed to get tough enough to keep things from getting to him, and stinging the few soft parts he has left inside...

In October 2002, Susan Polk, a housewife and mother of three, was arrested for the murder of her husband, Felix. The arrest in her sleepy northern California town kicked off what would become one of the most captivating murder trials in recent memory, as police, local attorneys, and the national media sought to unravel the complex web of events that sent this seemingly devoted housewife over the edge.Now, with the exclusive access and in-depth reporting that made A Deadly Game a number one New York Times bestseller, Catherine Crier turns an analytical eye to the story of Susan Polk, delving into her past and examining how over twenty years of marriage culminated in murder. Tracing the family’s history, Crier skillfully maneuvers the murky waters of the Polk’s marriage, looking at the real story behind Susan, Felix, and their unorthodox courtship. When Susan was in high school, Felix, who was more than twenty years her senior, had been her psychologist, and it was during their sessions that the romantic entanglement began. From these troubling origins grew a difficult marriage, one which produced three healthy boys but also led to disturbing accusations of abuse from both spouses.With extraordinary detail, Crier dissects this dangerous relationship between husband and wife, exposing their psychological motivations and the painful impact that these motivations had on their sons, Adam, Eli, and Gabriel. Drawing on sources from all sides of the case, Crier masterfully reconstructs the tumultuous chronology of the Polk family, telling the story of how Susan and Felix struggled to control their rambunctious sons and their disintegrating marriage in the years and months leading up to Felix’s death.But the history of the Polk family is only half the story. Here Crier also elucidates the methodical police work of the murder investigation, revealing never-before-seen photos and writings from the case file. In addition, she carefully scrutinizes the many twists and turns of the remarkable trial, exploring Susan’s struggles with her defense attorneys and her shocking decision to represent herself.Dark, psychological, and terrifying, Final Analysis is a harrowing look at the recesses of the human mind and the trauma that reveals them.

For ex-cop turned private investigator Cal Weaver, this was not exactly the biggest case of his career; in fact, he only took it on because Greta Carlson was a friend of a friend. Greta’s sixteen-year-old son Chandler was in trouble at school because of a short story he’d written. Admittedly the story featured a boy bludgeoning his best friend to death with a baseball bat because of an argument over a girl. But still, a story? Mrs Carlson wanted Cal to dig up some dirt on the high school principal she could use as leverage to get Chandler reinstated, and Cal told her in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t going to go down that road. But that wasn’t quite the end of the story. Chandler’s best friend Mike seems to be missing, and at the same time Cal can’t shake the feeling that Chandler may have had some help in completing his writing assignment. Life, it seems, may have imitated art after all, but figuring out who’s the author and who are just characters in the drama will take all of Cal’s critical skills to determine.

The first DKA File novel, Dead Skip, was called “superb in its swift, to-the-point plotting and on-the-mark dialogue. Dan Kearny’s detectives are Lew Archer in concert, and Joe Gores’ novel ranks at the head of its class.”

— O. L. Bailey, Saturday Review

In Final Notice Joe Gores has done it again. Here are the same characters, the same “fist in the face of authenticity.”[1] Joe Gores demonstrates once more how fresh and compelling the detective novel really can be.

A new novelette introducing a new detective, from the creator of Travis McGee, is indeed a mystery event. Duke Rhoades is a private consultant who, like McGee, specializes in recovering stolen goods. He looks just a bit like John Wayne and, he shares McGee’s liking for beautiful women.

The way to pin a murder rap on an undercover Racket-King is to panic him into doing his own killing.