Bøger af Bill Stackhouse

Even with a left leg shattered by a drug dealer's bullet and a medical retirement from the Detroit Police Force, former homicide captain Ed McAvoy feels he's too young to be put out to pasture. Accepting the job as Police Chief of Peekamoose Heights, in New York's Catskills, he figures it will be sort of like running a country club. After all, how much crime can there be in a quiet, little village? McAvoy soon discovers that his skills as a homicide detective will not atrophy from lack of use in Peekamoose Heights. Murder, as it turns out, is an equal-opportunity crime that not only resides in large bustling cities like Detroit, but in sleepy Catskill villages like Peekamoose Heights as well. In But Now I See, the eighth Ed McAvoy Mystery, Porky Jarvis, co-owner of The Plough & Whistle Pub in Peekamoose Heights, has been selected as one of the guest chefs for the 'Gastronomy and Great Estates on the Hudson' tour-a nine-day roundtrip cruise from New York City to Kinderhook to visit the historic mansions that dot the Hudson River shoreline, sandwiched between two two-day sightseeing excursions in Manhattan. Figuring that he has earned a long overdue vacation, McAvoy signs up for the tour along with Porky's sister, Stevie Henderson, even though, due to a previous commitment on Porky's part, Porky and Stevie, and therefore McAvoy will have to leave the tour after dinner on Day #5. Although not bringing his firearm with him, it's a good thing the Peekamoose Heights Chief of Police didn't forget to pack his investigative skills. When one of the members of the tour group is murdered, the Ulster County Sheriff tasks the former Detroit Police Force Homicide Captain with discovering who did it. Not so simple a task. First, McAvoy must figure out if the victim was, indeed, the intended target or simply collateral damage in a botched attempt at the assassination of someone else. Many questions. Few answers. And a secret group, monitoring McAvoy's every move, who would like to keep it that way.

Even with a left leg shattered by a drug dealer's bullet and a medical retirement from the Detroit Police Force, former homicide captain Ed McAvoy feels he's too young to be put out to pasture.With the slower pace in the Catskills, being Chief of Police in Peekamoose Heights will be sort of like running a country club, or so he thinks. After all, how much crime can there be?McAvoy soon discovers that his skills as a homicide detective will not atrophy from lack of use in Peekamoose Heights. Murder, as it turns out, is an equal-opportunity crime that not only resides in large bustling cities like Detroit, but in sleepy little Catskill villages like Peekamoose Heights as well.In the fifth book of the series, the ex-wife of a prominent U.S. Senator, her Country/Western singer lover, and the driver of the limousine in which they had been riding are all killed in a tragic traffic accident while trying to shake off a cadre of reporters and photographers. The sole survivor, the singer's bodyguard Darren Corbett, has been left with total amnesia about the crash and the events leading up to it. But Darren's memory is starting to return in disjointed bits and pieces, and attempts have been made on his life. Even when he visits his old Air Force buddy Porky Jarvis in Peekamoose Heights in an effort to escape from public view, the attempts continue. Now it's up to McAvoy to try and discover who wants Darren dead, and why.

Caitlin (Kate) O'Rourke is not your typical Irish-American lass. At six-one and one-hundred-seventy-eight pounds, with dark skin, raven-black hair, and a nose like an eagle, the former MVP setter/middle blocker on the Italian Pro Volleyball circuit is a has-been in her late 20s, prematurely retired due to a blown-out knee.Although retirement does not sit well with Kate, she soon finds herself so entangled in other people's difficulties that she doesn't have time to dwell on her own problems.Kehough's Irish Pub in Nashville, Tennessee, with its upstairs apartment, is home to Kate, and the pub itself not only provides employment for her brother, Seamus, and his wife, Mary Grace, but serves as an office for her fledgling confidential inquiries business.File this first book in the series under No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. After Caitlin rescues a damsel in distress from a mugger, she gets roped into babysitting the woman until the locks are changed on the woman's house. But when Caitlin's charge is murdered on her watch, the former Irish step dancer and former star athlete sets out to find out who did it-and why.

Caitlin (Kate) O'Rourke is not your typical Irish-American lass. At six-one and one-hundred-seventy-eight pounds, with dark skin, raven-black hair, and a nose like an eagle, the former MVP setter/middle blocker on the Italian Pro Volleyball circuit is a has-been in her late 20s, prematurely retired due to a blown-out knee.Although retirement does not sit well with Kate, she soon finds herself so entangled in other people's difficulties that she doesn't have time to dwell on her own problems.Kehough's Irish Pub in Nashville, Tennessee, with its upstairs apartment, is home to Kate, and the pub itself not only provides employment for her brother, Seamus, and his wife, Mary Grace, but serves as an office for her fledgling confidential inquiries business.In Into Mind, Into Sight, a plea from a friend to run a check on the friend's former fiancé seems to be a simple enough request, and Kate readily agrees to the undertaking. When the friend is murdered, along with nine other people, in one of those increasingly-frequent senseless shootings, Kate decides that a promise is a promise and continues with her confidential inquiry.However, after completing her investigation and discovering the answer to her dead friend's query, Kate becomes the victim of a near-fatal attack.Was the assault just payback for what Kate's investigation revealed, or was it pre-emptive, to keep her from figuring out what else her confidential inquiry may have inadvertently uncovered?Kate needs to find the answer quickly, before the assassin strikes again.

Peace has reigned in Cruachan since Seamus, the first High King, united the three kingdoms into a Confederation and, with the assistance of the dwarfs from the Sawtooth Mountains in the north and the elves from the Tangled Woods in the east, drove the occupying Northmen from the island nation. Yet there is an undercurrent of unrest. Some Cruachanians fought for independence, thinking that the hereditary system of government with its shire chieftains and provincial kings would be replaced by a republic. Others, who profited handsomely under the occupiers, still dream of yesteryears' wealth.In A Fire Rages in Cruachan, the third book of the tetralogy, it has been sixteen years since Pádraig, having been instrumental in thwarting a rebellion by the Northern Alliance that would have torn the Confederation of the Three Kingdoms asunder, was consecrated as a master wizard and picked by Déaglán, High King of Cruachan and King of the Western Shires, to be Court Wizard for the Western Shires, replacing the late Venerable Taliesin.Déaglán's son, Crown Prince Liam, functioning as Acting-King of the Western Shires in his father's absence, had objected to the appointment, angry with Pádraig for having included in the Articles of Capitulation that ended the insurrection a clause nullifying Liam's betrothal to his first love, Máiréad, and requiring him to instead marry Teagan, the sister of Ríoghán, King of the Northern Shires.Now, with the passing over to The Otherworld of the Venerable Coinneach, Master of the Academy for the Spiritually Gifted, Liam has convinced Déaglán to appoint Pádraig as Coinneach's successor. Although a prestigious assignment, Pádraig realizes it for what it is-a deprivation posting. A way for Liam to finally get rid of him by sending him to administer the school for aspiring wizards on Blessed Island.Although out of Liam's sight and mind, Pádraig still has his finger on the pulse of happenings on the mainland. Like Coinneach before him, Pádraig oversees The Watchmen, a secret group of like-minded individuals who don't want another conflict foisted upon them because of zealot republicans or former Northman overlord collaborators.As Prime Watchman, Pádraig receives reports of two similar suspicious poisoning deaths in different Northern shires. All indications are that these deaths are merely experiments to test the efficacy of the poison. But, the ultimate target eludes The Watchmen.Pádraig is also made aware that in the Northern Shires, a company quartermaster sergeant from the garrison at North Head has discovered that supply wagons sent out from Fortress Béarra are being surreptitiously diverted into the forest of The Uplands. After reporting the discrepancy to the quartermaster at Fortress Béarra, all the teamsters assigned to the next shipment are killed in a raid, supposedly by bandits. An unfortunate coincidence? Or, a clean-up operation to eliminate any witnesses to the plot?Has the Northern Alliance been reconstituted? If so, under whose auspices? And, how much time before they reveal their hand and strike? These are just three of the many questions to which the Venerable Pádraig and The Watchmen must find answers-and find them quickly.

Even with a left leg shattered by a drug dealer's bullet and a medical retirement from the Detroit Police Force, former homicide captain Ed McAvoy feels he's too young to be put out to pasture.With the slower pace in the Catskills, being Chief of Police in Peekamoose Heights will be sort of like running a country club, or so he thinks. After all, how much crime can there be?McAvoy soon discovers that his skills as a homicide detective will not atrophy from lack of use in Peekamoose Heights. Murder, as it turns out, is an equal-opportunity crime that not only resides in large bustling cities like Detroit, but in sleepy little Catskill villages like Peekamoose Heights as well.In the fourth book of the series, a bank teller and owner of a small Catskill print shop is killed by a known mob hit-man who, in turn, is killed by Heather Larrabee, a Peekamoose Heights Police Officer. Now Heather's house and car have been searched, as well as the teller's aunt's house. McAvoy must find what the mob is looking for before someone else gets killed in the process.

Caitlin (Kate) O'Rourke is not your typical Irish-American lass. At six-one and one-hundred-seventy-eight pounds, with dark skin, raven-black hair, and a nose like an eagle, the former MVP setter/middle blocker on the Italian Pro Volleyball circuit is a has-been in her late 20s, prematurely retired due to a blown-out knee.Although retirement does not sit well with Kate, she soon finds herself so entangled in other people's difficulties that she doesn't have time to dwell on her own problems.Kehough's Irish Pub in Nashville, Tennessee, with its upstairs apartment, is home to Kate, and the pub itself not only provides employment for her brother, Seamus, and his wife, Mary Grace, but serves as an office for her fledgling confidential inquiries business.In this, the third Caitlin O'Rourke Mystery, a nun is found brutally murdered on the grounds of Sacred Heart Convent, and the police have no leads, no evidence, no motive, and no witnesses. But Kate's former eighth-grade teacher suspects that a little mentally retarded girl may have vital information locked away in her mind, and she enlists Kate's help. Now Kate, undercover as a postulant nun, must see if she can find the key to that impaired mind and, at the same time, keep the little girl safe from a killer who wants the information locked away forever.

Even with a left leg shattered by a drug dealer's bullet and a medical retirement from the Detroit Police Force, former homicide captain Ed McAvoy feels he's too young to be put out to pasture.With the slower pace in the Catskills, being Chief of Police in Peekamoose Heights will be sort of like running a country club, or so he thinks. After all, how much crime can there be?McAvoy soon discovers that his skills as a homicide detective will not atrophy from lack of use in Peekamoose Heights. Murder, as it turns out, is an equal-opportunity crime that not only resides in large bustling cities like Detroit, but in sleepy little Catskill villages like Peekamoose Heights as well.In this suspenseful prequel to Stream of Death, a former fashion model runs her car off a cliff at the Ashokan Pass on the outskirts of Peekamoose Heights in New York's Catskills-or has it been made to look that way? What McAvoy suspects and what he can prove are two different things. But the retired big-city homicide detective, and now newly hired village Chief of Police, has a few tricks up his sleeve that may lead him to that proof.

Even with a left leg shattered by a drug dealer's bullet and a medical retirement from the Detroit Police Force, former homicide captain Ed McAvoy feels he's too young to be put out to pasture. With the slower pace in the Catskills, being Chief of Police in Peekamoose Heights will be sort of like running a country club, or so he thinks. After all, how much crime can there be? McAvoy soon discovers that his skills as a homicide detective will not atrophy from lack of use in Peekamoose Heights. Murder, as it turns out, is an equal-opportunity crime that not only resides in large bustling cities like Detroit, but in sleepy little Catskill villages like Peekamoose Heights as well. In Forget Me Not, the seventh Ed McAvoy Mystery, a young reporter is found murdered in the forest near Peekamoose Heights. All indications point to the fact that he stumbled across a methamphetamine-making operation. But his current assignment had nothing to do with drugs. He was supposed to be writing a puff piece about German WWII POWs held in the area who had returned there to live after being repatriated. However, the reporter's girlfriend comes forward with a computer flash drive that shows he was actually working on an article about a fifteen-year-old disappearance of a mob informant. Almost immediately thereafter, the girlfriend disappears. And, there are known mobsters sniffing around the crime scene. Before McAvoy can begin to answer the question of 'Who murdered the reporter?' he must sort through the various theories of 'Why was the reporter murdered?'

Caitlin (Kate) O'Rourke is not your typical Irish-American lass. At six-one and one-hundred-seventy-eight pounds, with dark skin, raven-black hair, and a nose like an eagle, the former MVP setter/middle blocker on the Italian Pro Volleyball circuit is a has-been in her late 20s, prematurely retired due to a blown-out knee.Although retirement does not sit well with Kate, she soon finds herself so entangled in other people's difficulties that she doesn't have time to dwell on her own problems.Kehough's Irish Pub in Nashville, Tennessee, with its upstairs apartment, is home to Kate, and the pub itself not only provides employment for her brother, Seamus, and his wife, Mary Grace, but serves as an office for her fledgling confidential inquiries business.In this, the second Caitlin O'Rourke Mystery, Kate goes undercover to investigate a mentally unstable woman's claims that art objects are disappearing and reappearing in her mother-in-law's home. But when Kate's client is accused of the mother-in-law's murder and the arson used to cover it up, Kate must find a way to prove the woman's innocence by unmasking the real killer.

Even with a left leg shattered by a drug dealer's bullet and a medical retirement from the Detroit Police Force, former homicide captain Ed McAvoy feels he's too young to be put out to pasture.With the slower pace in the Catskills, being Chief of Police in Peekamoose Heights will be sort of like running a country club, or so he thinks. After all, how much crime can there be?McAvoy soon discovers that his skills as a homicide detective will not atrophy from lack of use in Peekamoose Heights. Murder, as it turns out, is an equal-opportunity crime that not only resides in large bustling cities like Detroit, but in sleepy little Catskill villages like Peekamoose Heights as well.In this exciting sequel to Stream of Death, McAvoy's friend Sam Douglas has bought a Queen Anne tall-case clock at auction-at a bargain price. Trading it to Kate Winthrop for her lesser-quality Massachusetts clock and then selling the Massachusetts to a third party sight unseen seems to bode well for the Catskill antique dealer-until the third party winds up dead and, in her dying breath, identifies Sam as her attacker.

Even with a left leg shattered by a drug dealer's bullet and a medical retirement from the Detroit Police Force, former homicide captain Ed McAvoy feels he's too young to be put out to pasture.With the slower pace in the Catskills, being Chief of Police in Peekamoose Heights will be sort of like running a country club, or so he thinks. After all, how much crime can there be?McAvoy soon discovers that his skills as a homicide detective will not atrophy from lack of use in Peekamoose Heights. Murder, as it turns out, is an equal-opportunity crime that not only resides in large bustling cities like Detroit, but in sleepy little Catskill villages like Peekamoose Heights as well.In Thin Ice, the sixth Ed McAvoy Mystery, the festive atmosphere of the annual Peekamoose Heights Winter Carnival is shattered by acts of vandalism on a food truck during the first night of the week-long fair, and accusations run rampant among rival vendors. But when three-time National Champion Dallas Conover is attacked and injured at the National Figure Skating pre-trials being held on Stuyvesant Pond and one of the mobile chefs is found shot to death, McAvoy must get to the bottom of things quickly before the food-fight turns even deadlier.

Even with a left leg shattered by a drug dealer's bullet and a medical retirement from the Detroit Police Force, former homicide captain Ed McAvoy feels he's too young to be put out to pasture.With the slower pace in the Catskills, being Chief of Police in Peekamoose Heights will be sort of like running a country club, or so he thinks. After all, how much crime can there be?McAvoy soon discovers that his skills as a homicide detective will not atrophy from lack of use in Peekamoose Heights. Murder, as it turns out, is an equal-opportunity crime that not only resides in large bustling cities like Detroit, but in sleepy little Catskill villages like Peekamoose Heights as well.In Stream of Death, the first Ed McAvoy Mystery, the famed Isabela Pendant disappears amid a hail of machine-pistol bullets during the closing days of WWII in Sicily. When it temporarily resurfaces in Detroit after over a half century, six people are murdered. Now, four years later, a dog has dug it up in the woods near McAvoy's peaceful Catskill village of Peekamoose Heights.

Peace has reigned in Cruachan since Seamus, the first High King, united the three kingdoms into a Confederation and, with the assistance of the dwarfs from the Sawtooth Mountains in the north and the elves from the Tangled Woods in the east, drove the occupying Northmen from the island nation. Yet there is an undercurrent of unrest. Some Cruachanians fought for independence, thinking that the hereditary system of government with its shire chieftains and provincial kings would be replaced by a republic. Others, who profited handsomely under the occupiers, still dream of yesteryears' wealth. In The Embers are Fanned in Cruachan, the second book of the tetralogy, Pádraig has graduated from the Academy for the Spiritually Gifted as an Apprentice Wizard in a little less than eight years. After spending a month with the journeyman wizards in each of the seventeen shires in the Kingdoms of the Western and Eastern Shires, he now sets out for a five-month stint in the Northern Shires, assigned to an oblate wizard who lives in the middle of nowhere in the foothills of the Sawtooth Mountains. When Pádraig ventures out to investigate reports of some suspicious goings-on up at North Head, he finds himself drugged and imprisoned, with no one knowing his whereabouts. However, his former love and classmate, Máiréad, also an apprentice wizard, senses his presence, and sets out to help him escape and attempt to save the Confederation of the Three Kingdoms from an impending insurrection.

Peace has reigned in Cruachan since Seamus, the first High King, united the three kingdoms into a Confederation and, with the assistance of the dwarfs from the Sawtooth Mountains in the north and the elves from the Tangled Woods in the east, drove the occupying Northmen from the island nation. Yet there is an undercurrent of unrest. Some Cruachanians fought for independence, thinking that the hereditary system of government with its shire chieftains and provincial kings would be replaced by a republic. Others, who profited handsomely under the occupiers, still dream of yesteryears' wealth.In Book #1 of The Chronicles of Pádraig, the teenage son of a blacksmith, has been blessed as an adept. Having no interest in attending the Academy for the Spiritually Gifted to hone his talent and become a wizard, Pádraig plans on following in his father's footsteps. However, three seemingly disparate events may cause him to rethink his future. A Northman assassin washes up on the beach below a fortress that the High King is visiting in the Kingdom of the Western Shires. A blacksmith is murdered in the Central Federal Region. And, in the Kingdom of the Northern Shires, the High King's son is kidnapped.Now the young adept must use both his wits and his unpolished gift to put the pieces of the puzzle together in order to solve the murder of his fellow blacksmith, thwart the kidnappers, and save the Confederation.

With a left leg shattered by a drug dealer's bullet, former Detroit homicide captain Ed McAvoy accepts a job as Police Chief of Peekamoose Heights, in New York's Catskills. He figures it will be semi-retirement, sort of like running a country club. After all, how much crime can there be? McAvoy soon discovers that his homicide skills will not atrophy from lack of use. Murder, as it turns out, is an equal-opportunity crime that not only resides in large bustling cities like Detroit, but in sleepy, little Catskill villages as well. In the sixth Ed McAvoy Mystery, the festive atmosphere of the annual Winter Carnival is shattered by an act of vandalism on a food truck during the first night of the week-long fair and accusations run rampant among rival vendors. But when the two-time National Champion is attacked and injured at the National Figure Skating pre-trials and one of the mobile chefs is found shot to death, McAvoy must get to the bottom of things quickly before the food-fight turns even deadlier.