Showing results by author "John Lutz" in All Categories

In the year 2038, there’s only one destination that can play host to the world’s wealthiest adventure seekers: the Pengalaman Island Resort and Virtual Reality Theme Park. Located on a private South Pacific island, guests here live out their wildest fantasies in custom-made virtual reality simulations while also enjoying the usual amenities of an exclusive five-star getaway. All is relatively breezy until famed billionaire and avid guest, Mr. Wagner, goes missing within a virtual simulation. His only hope? A daring rescue led by Derek Ambrose and his ragtag search party.

Private eye Fred Carver investigates the slaughter of an ex-cop, the murder of a man who was found stuffed to the gills with cocaine, and other crimes.

Hattie Evans, a retired schoolteacher, isn’t one to fuss. When her husband drops dead of a heart attack, she does her best to move on without too many tears. After all, Jerome was 70 years old. But an anonymous note, asserting that her husband was murdered, shakes her resolve, and she seeks out help. The police are useless, save that they send her to Fred Carver - a former Orlando cop who turned PI when a bullet shattered his left knee. Her case takes Carver into the depths of Solartown: an old-age mecca where 70 is the new 40, golf carts are the only way to get around, and death from natural causes is nowhere to be found.

A case of mistaken identity gives St. Louis PI Nudger lumps and bruises. A female doctor about the size of an average linebacker leads him to a crooked alcohol rehabilitation clinic.

Kill... or be killed. Frank Quinn is a decorated ex-cop. A former homicide detective specializing in tracking serial killers. Now his niece, Carlie Clark, needs help. Someone is stalking her, and the NYPD can’t stop him. A blonde, blue-eyed beauty, Carlie fits the victim type of the killer who’s been terrorizing women — leaving them bound, gagged, and tortured with surgical precision. To win against the most personal adversary of his career, Quinn will have to set the perfect trap. All he needs is the perfect bait….

A beautiful jogger, drained of blood, dismembered, then meticulously reassembled on the grass in Central Park. Subway derailments, plummeting elevators, collapsing construction cranes, apartment explosions - all creating a bloody, senseless puzzle.

Ex-homicide cop Frank Quinn is still reeling in the wake of an elaborate setup that ended his career, but a new case presents a chance to salvage his reputation. A killer dubbed "The Night Prowler" has begun terrorizing the citizens of New York City. With the body count climbing, it's up to Quinn to unlock the mystery of a madman's past and end his bloody reign of terror. But in the city of New York, any one of eight million faces could be that of a killer - or his next target.

Alo Nudger, the St. Louis ex-cop is both the most normal of all fictional private eyes and the most surprising. He's got an uncertain stomach he doses with nonstop antacids; he doesn't like guns or violence; and since he doesn't feel any special affinity for what he does, from nosing into people's dirty laundry to confronting perps with the consequences of their misdeeds, and makes more than his share of mistakes, it's only natural that his business cards identify him in typographical error as a private defective.

Listen to mystery stories by today's top writers and the masters who inspired them. The idea for this collection came to Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Lawrence Block when he was asked, "What is your favorite mystery story?" Block compiled this unique collection by posing the same question to some of today's favorite writers of the genre, including Stephen King, Tony Hillerman, and John Lutz.

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He mutilates his victims. Slices their throats. And carves an X into their flesh. Five years ago, he claimed the lives of six women. Then the killings abruptly stopped - no one knows why. Ex-homicide detective Frank Quinn remembers - which is why he's shocked to see one of the dead women in his office. Actually, she's the identical twin of the last victim, and she wants Quinn to find her sister's murderer. But when the cold case heats up, it attracts the media spotlight - and suddenly the killings start again....

Six dead women in a hotel room. Five of them students, still in their teens. Tied up. Tortured. The NYPD recognizes the suspect’s signature - three bloody initials carved into each victim’s forehead. Ex-cop Frank Quinn has faced this madman before. Both bear scars from their last encounter. Killer and cop, hunter and prey… In a deadly game of matched wits, only one can prevail. It’s not just about who gets killed. It’s about who will survive.

The killer's depravity is insatiable. What he does to his victims is unthinkable. Homicide detective turned P.I. Frank Quinn has seen this M.O. before. A demented ritual, it's the work of Daniel Danielle - a notorious serial killer who blurs the line between male and female, human and monster. Danielle disappeared ten years ago. Is a copy cat repeating the crimes? Or has Danielle made a deadly return? Either way, this time the killing won't stop....

Homicide detective Frank Quinn can't stay retired when a new breed of murdering madman is on the prowl. In a city terrorized by bloody brutality, Quinn and his team hunt a psychopath who lures beautiful women into a night of unbridled passion, then wakes them to a vicious, drawn-out death. Stumbling over a trail of horribly defiled bodies, Quinn can't seem to catch up to the killer - because the killer is about to catch up to him.

A madman is stalking women in the city. By the time his victims are found, they've been dismembered with careful precision, their limbs stacked into a gruesome pyramid and completely cleansed of every last drop of blood. Accustomed to working on the most grisly homicides, detective Frank Quinn's nerves don't rattle easily. But when the last names of the killer's victims spell out "Q-u-i-n-n", the veteran cop feels a chill run down his spine.

There’s a twisted serial killer stalking the streets of New York City, dealing his own perverse version of justice. He kills swiftly and silently, leaving his calling card - a red "J" - on the bodies of his prey. His victims have one thing in common: They’ve all been jurors in the city’s most infamous cases - cases in which the killer was found "not guilty". Overnight, the Justice Killer has the city in a stranglehold. And there’s only one man who has a shot at finding him....

Intrigue, crime, and murder create suspense in this edge-of-your-seat collection of cat mystery stories whose plots are all centered on a beloved feline, written by some of the finest, best-selling mystery writers of all time.

From master mystery author John Lutz comes this collection featuring a gripping man-on-the-run novel and four of his best pieces of short fiction. In The Truth of the Matter, Lou Roebuck is a successful advertising man with all the trappings - prestige, position, a flashy car, money, and a beautiful woman on his arm. He's also a compulsive liar, and what begins as a fib on his expense account leads to trouble that compounds like loan shark interest. His past, and the people in it, has caught up with him, again. 

Wilson Capp is an honorable man in a dishonorable profession. While the others involved in the notorious Gateway scandal that toppled a president told all and made their fortunes, Wilson Capp kept the faith, kept his silence...and was rewarded with prison. Now Wilson Capp is free. And he's out to make his former associates pay the ultimate price for their betrayal.

What was once New York's proudest skyscraper is now a heap of ruins, littered with the bodies of the dead and the dying. Beyond it, like firecrackers on a string, the rest of the targets wait to be ignited, unless the demands of the Jericho Man are met.