Collin Wilcox

An old friend is murdered, and Hastings will do anything he can to avenge her When Frank Hastings knew Meredith Powell, she was a gawky ten-year-old without a care in the world. More than two decades later, she has grown into a stunning beauty-but the gleam in her eye is gone. Over lunch, Meredith confesses that she lives in terror of her emotionally abusive boyfriend, a possessive, rage-filled man named Charles. Hastings, a homicide lieutenant with...

A dying art collector asks Bernhardt to revisit him in his darkest hour The first time Betty Giles went missing, her employers wanted her dead. They hired Alan Bernhardt, theater director and sometimes PI, to find her, but when he discovered their scheme, he drew a sawed-off shotgun to save her life. Now Betty's missing again, hiding somewhere in Europe, and her old bosses want her found. Will Bernhardt deliver her to the man who once tried to have...

Hastings chases a serial killer whose deranged letters hold a city for ransom The doctor comes through his front door as he always does, a bundle of mail in hand. He's about to walk up the stairs when the bullet passes through his back, puncturing his heart and leaving him dead in his front hall. By the time Lieutenant Frank Hastings arrives, rigor mortis has set in, and the doctor's body rolls easily away from the wall. Pinned beneath him is a note...

A senator's life is in danger-and anyone in San Francisco could be a killer Senate majority leader Donald Ryan is a kingmaker, with the power to make or break presidencies, and the ability to reshape the country with a flick of his pen. He is also a very sick man, recovering from a heart attack that must be kept secret at all costs. But when a series of death threats jeopardizes his planned return to public life, the FBI calls in San Francisco police...

To honor a dying don's last wish, a mob lieutenant searches for hidden diamonds After seven years ruling his empire from prison, Don Carlo remains as powerful as ever, but his heart is beginning to fail. On the verge of death, he begs his right-hand man, Bacardo, to look after his family. Not his wife and children, the don explains, but Louise and Angela-his daughter and granddaughter from a beloved mistress who died long ago. To Louise, the don bequeaths...

A murder witness flees to California for protection, taking refuge in the theater Diane Cutler is half drunk and half stoned when she sees her stepfather carrying the body out of the house. She and her boyfriend look on, horrified, as real estate tycoon Preston Daniels loads his dead mistress into the car. Unable to resist their curiosity, they follow him, and watch as he dumps the poor woman's body in the rocks and sand of the Cape Cod landfill....