From Publishers WeeklyUsing a gripping minute-by-minute, day-by-day format, Wilcox (Silent Witness) charts the downfall of New York real estate tycoon Preston Daniels, first encountered on Cape Cod at the scene of his mistress's accidental death. College freshman Diane Cutler and her boyfriend see Daniels, her despised stepfather, carrying a body to the local landfill. After the boyfriend attempts blackmail and is badly beaten, the terrified Diane flees to San Francisco to stay with a friend, who tries to persuade PI Alan Bernhardt to take on Diane as a client and protect her. Bernhardt claims he is too busy, so his actress girlfriend Paula takes on the job. Paula saves Diane from an attacker, but darker events are in store: after the frightened girl learns of her boy friend's death, she overdoses on drugs. Swearing to find out and expose what Diane knew, Alan travels to Cape Cod to investigate. Wilcox delivers a taut, suspenseful mystery with credible dialogue and good local color. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalDetective Alan Burchardt looks into the suspicious death of a New York real estate tycoon's latest girlfriend--a death secretly witnessed by the man's estranged stepdaughter in Cape Cod.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A surgeon is gunned down in the street—but who is the woman who wanted him dead?Brice Hanchett is a brilliant surgeon, and those who work alongside the man consider him either godlike or devilish. After years of success, he has begun to believe his own legend, and soon goes too far—toying not just with life and death, but with the heart of every woman he meets. He has a wife and a mistress, as well as the attention of all the nurses in the hospital. One of them is waiting for him when he goes out to his Jaguar, a gun in her hand. It takes only two shots to remind Brice Hanchett that even the finest surgeon cannot cheat death.Investigating the case falls to Lieutenant Frank Hastings and the boys in San Francisco Homicide. Learning that the killer was female should narrow the search, but with a victim like Hanchett, any woman—in scrubs or out—could be a suspect.

The most famous televangelist in America declares “total war” on the sinners of the earthAustin Holloway came to Los Angeles in the 1930s with nothing but a briefcase, a few hundred dollars, and a letter of introduction to a local radio station. The son of a revival tent preacher, Holloway wanted to bring the good word to the airwaves, first radio, and then television. He had no idea he was starting an empire.Decades later, Holloway is the richest man of God in the country; his sermons broadcast coast to coast every Sunday. But fame and fortune are not enough. He wants to share the love of Christ with those who have never tasted it before—the oppressed people of Communist China. Standing in the way of history’s most ambitious mission trip is his failing health, and his family—which includes an alcoholic wife, an out-of-control son, and a daughter with a rebellious streak. The kingdom of heaven is open to Holloway—but getting there will mean a trip through hell.

A crime reporter with ESP tackles a double homicideIn a San Francisco apartment building, a young woman is found strangled beside a piano player with a broken neck. He’s a nobody—a dreamer with little talent and no future—but she is Roberta Grinnel, daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the Bay Area. Stephen Drake, crime reporter for the Sentinel, feels nothing when he looks at their corpses, and this is a troubling fact. For Drake is a psychic, and when his sixth sense fails him, that means more trouble ahead.As Drake tries to come to grips with his cosmic gift, the mystery of the heiress and the piano player becomes the hottest story in town. To keep his gig at the paper, Drake will call on every source he has—on this plane and the astral one—but knowing danger’s lurking doesn’t guarantee he can stay out of its way.Review“Collin Wilcox gets better and better.” —Tony Hillerman“One of the three best mystery writers in America, his stories and characters as real as a clenched fist.” —Jack Finney, author of Time and Again“[An] old pro.” —Kirkus ReviewsAbout the AuthorCollin Wilcox (1924–1996) was an American author of mystery fiction. Born in Detroit, he set most of his work in San Francisco, beginning with 1967’s The Black Door—a noir thriller starring a crime reporter with extrasensory perception. Under the pen name Carter Wick, he published several standalone mysteries including The Faceless Man (1975) and Dark House, Dark Road (1982), but he found his greatest success under his own name, with the celebrated Frank Hastings series.Hastings, a football player turned San Francisco homicide detective, made his debut in The Lonely Hunter (1969), and Wilcox continued to follow him for the rest of his career, publishing nearly two dozen novels in the series, which concludes with Calculated Risk (1995). Wilcox’s other best-known series stars Alan Bernhardt, a theatrical director with a habit of getting involved in behind-the-scenes mysteries. Bernhardt appeared in four more books after his introduction in 1988’s Bernhardt’s Edge.

To honor a dying don’s last wish, a mob lieutenant searches for hidden diamondsAfter 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 one million dollars in diamonds, hidden in a cemetery in a tiny California town. Securing her inheritance will mean mortal danger for Louise, Bacardo, and the private investigator they hire to help them—a moonlighting director named Alan Bernhardt. Bernhardt understands the risks, but also knows that the theater and the mafia have two things in common: the understanding that a professional is only as good as his word, and that the only way to survive is to act without fear.From Publishers WeeklyIn the latest Alan Bernhardt mystery, following Except for the Bones , the San Francisco actor/director and part-time sleuth is absent for nearly the first third of the tale. By the time he comes on stage, an imprisoned mobster has died and secretly left behind some valuables to a woman named Louise, his daughter by a former mistress. The new capo de capo isn't glad to learn about this cache of jewels. Louise tells her 20-year-old daughter, Angela, that the mob may be looking for them and the legacy, which they have to dig up from its hiding place; Angela approaches Alan for help. In short order, suave Chinese killer, Brian Chin, is in on the doings as well. Wilcox, who also writes a series about a persistent San Francisco cop named Hastings, gradually establishes an authentic mobster milieu, offering the required mix of brutality and honor. The action accelerates as Alan, Angela and others trace their way through a series of betrayals and allegiances, including an abduction, but it all leads to a somewhat loosely tied ending. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus ReviewsCapo Carlo Venezzio dies of a heart attack while in prison, but not before he's ordered right-hand man Tony Bacardo to see that a million dollars' worth of diamonds has been salted away for his illegitimate daughter, Louise, and her daughter, Angela. To help Louise claim the jewels, hidden in a cemetery in tiny Fowler's Landing, California, Bacardo, now swearing allegiance to another don, Benito Cella, must tread carefully; meanwhile, a mafia soldier, Fabrese, is on his trail and wants the diamonds for himself, so Bacardo hotfoots it back to New York, telling the women to recover the jewels themselves. They call in part-time p.i. Alan Bernhardt (Except for the Bones, etc.), who witnesses a double- cross--which leads to a double-kidnapping. The mafia then reenters the picture, and Bernhardt must exert last-minute heroics to avert a bloodbath. A persuasive primer on the mafia's business methods and ethics. Old pro Wilcox characterizes the mobsters so deftly that his story suffers when it switches focus to Bernhardt. Flawed but clever. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Investigating an ex-cop's death, Hastings gets drawn into a family conspiracyIt was just after he made lieutenant that Frank Hastings told Charlie Quade to resign. They had known each other at the academy, and Quade was a rotten cop from day one. Dogged by rumors of corruption, Quade left without protest, eking out a living doing security work. When Hastings hears Quade has been shot dead, he doesn't blink. The only surprise is the place the ex-cop died.Alexander Guest is one of the wealthiest lawyers in the city, and Hastings can't understand why he would hire a thug like Quade to protect his grandson from the father-in-law who wants to kidnap him. When Quade's body is found, the grandson is long gone, and the father-in-law is the natural suspect. But Hastings knows better than to trust the rich, and he refuses to accept the easy answer.