IRS agent-turned-PI Mortimer Angel is relaxing in a hole-in-the-wall bar in a Reno casino when an attractive young girl hires him to find out who left her a cryptic message demanding a million dollars. At the girl’s house, Mort finds the body of missing rapper Jonnie Xenon --- Jo-X to his legions of fans --- hanging from the rafters with two bullet holes in him. Mort is shocked when he learns the identity of the girl’s father --- and even more shocked when the father hires him to investigate the murder. Mort, being Mort, accumulates a few felonies as he follows the clues to Las Vegas. And along the way, he picks up an alluring young assistant who changes his life --- in every conceivable way.

In CATASTROPHE, renowned Italian short story writer Dino Buzzati brings vividly to life the slow and quietly terrifying collapse of our known, everyday world. From “The Epidemic,” which traces the gradual effects of a “state influenza” that targets those who disagree with the government, to “The Collapse of Baliverna,” where a man puzzles over whether a misstep on his part caused the collapse of a building, Buzzati’s surreal, unsettling tales reckon with the struggle that lies beneath everyday interactions, the sometimes perverse workings of human emotions and desires, and describe the small steps we take as individuals and as a society in our march toward catastrophe.

London, 1850: A young Charles Lenox struggles to make a name for himself as a detective…without a single case. But when an anonymous writer sends a letter to the paper claiming to have committed the perfect crime --- and promising to kill again --- Lenox is convinced that this is his chance to prove himself. The writer’s first victim is a young woman whose body is found in a naval trunk. With few clues to go on, Lenox endeavors to solve the crime before another innocent life is lost. When the killer’s sights are turned toward those whom Lenox holds most dear, the stakes are raised and Lenox is trapped in a desperate game of cat and mouse.

Matt Royal, the retired lawyer-turned-beach-bum, is called back into the courtroom to defend his girlfriend J.D. Duncan's Aunt Esther. A bestselling author has been murdered after a book signing, and Aunt Esther has been arrested. Matt reluctantly suits up for the courtroom, and J.D. takes a leave from the police department to go undercover. A bizarre specter from the past haunts their investigation every step of the way. As they delve further into the case, the pieces of the puzzle refuse to fall into any kind of coherent pattern. Jock Algren arrives with his special skill set to expose the real murderer and free Aunt Esther, but to no avail. Not until the case goes to trial and the evidence is revealed does the truth emerge --- and a strange kind of justice prevails.

PI Jake Longly and Nicole Jemison head to New Orleans at the behest of Nicole's uncle, movie producer Charles Balfour, when his megastar, A-list actor Kirk Ford, awakens in his hotel bed with the body of Kristi Guidry, a local college coed. Ford, in the Big Easy for a location shoot, remembers little of the evening and nothing of the murder. And, to make matters worse, Kristi is the niece of a local mafioso-type who will do whatever is necessary to avenge her death. Surrounded by glitzy Hollywood stars and intimidated by seedy underworld characters, Jake and Nicole encounter nothing but obstacles. The clock is ticking as they struggle to decipher who's lying, who's telling the truth, and exactly who schemed to murder Kristi.

Rick Cahill has long feared the truth about his own blood --- the blood of his father coursing through his veins. When a long-hidden safe unlocks clues about why his father was kicked off the police force 27 years ago and then spiraled into an early drunken death, Rick determines to find the truth even if it proves the one thing he's always feared. But as he grapples with his father's past, the woman he still loves pleads with him to find out if her husband is having an affair --- or is involved in something much more sinister. Could the truth send her back into Rick’s arms? Would he have a last shot at happiness? He may never get the chance to find out, as killers who will do anything to protect their secrets lurk in the shadows.

Bobbi Logan is a successful businesswoman and a celebrated hairdresser. She is a witty, articulate woman who has survived rape, gender transition, a murder investigation, and countless acts of bullying and bigotry to get to where she is --- and she's made enemies along the way. Now one of them is stalking her. With each passing day, the threats become more brazen, more violent and more personal. Bobbi accumulates a list of six suspects and hunts them down, one by one. But as she confronts those men who may want to do her harm, the number seven keeps haunting her --- there must be a seventh suspect. And when she finds him, Bobbi’s world implodes.

Hamas has taken power in Palestine, and the Israeli government is rounding up threats. When Palestinian policewoman Rania Bakara finds herself thrown in prison, though she has never been part of Hamas, her friend Chloe flies in from San Francisco to get her out. Chloe begs an Israeli policeman named Benny for help --- and Benny offers Rania a way out: investigate the death of a young man in a village near her own. The young man’s neighbors believe the Israeli army killed him; Benny believes his death might not have been so honorable. Chloe's investigation draws her into a Palestinian gay scene she never knew existed, forcing her to question her beliefs about love, justice and cultural identity.

Police psychologist Dr. Dot Meyerhoff is pulled into the vortex of a terrible crime involving an eccentric photographer whose images of nude children make her a prime suspect in the disappearance of her own daughter. However, she is trapped between her allegiance to the principal investigator, a young officer whose dedication to work and obsession with finding the missing child is tearing his own family apart, her complicated connections to the photographer, and her unstable relationship with the police chief. As Dot's psychological expertise and determination contribute to solving the mystery, her involvement with the missing child's extended, dysfunctional family brings her face-to-face with painful psychological issues of her own.

TANGIER tells two parallel stories. In the first, we follow Christopher Chaffee, a disgraced Washington power broker whose father, a French diplomat, died in a Vichy prison in 1944 --- or so he had always believed until a letter, received decades after it was posted, upends his life. The second is a tale of espionage and betrayal, set in Morocco during WWII. Rene Laurent, Christopher’s father, struggles to maintain his integrity --- and his life --- in the snake pit of wartime Tangier. The stories slowly intertwine as Christopher unravels the mystery of his father’s fate, and Laurent becomes trapped in a web of lies and corruption and caught up, too, in the arms of a woman he knows he shouldn’t trust.