Rare Books
Nightwork : a Dave Brandstetter novel
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Obedience : a Dave Brandstetter novel
Rare Books
"As an insurance investigator, Dave Brandstetter built a reputation unraveling suspicious deaths. Now, well into middle age, he has decided to retire for the sake of Cecil, the young TV reporter who loves and cherishes him, and has too often risked his own life for Dave's work. But retirement does not come easily. Dave never did it for the money. He always had that. Nor did he tirelessly work cases in hopes of chasing renown. It was always the pursuit of the truth that drove Dave. He enjoyed the truth's habit of coming into direct conflict with bigotry, allowing him to surprise the small-minded along the way. It doesn't take much arm twisting, then, to get Dave back in the saddle when an old friend in the public defender's office asks him to help Andy Flanagan, a shiftless young man accused of murdering a Vietnamese businessman to defend the Old Fleet--a shantytown of houseboats that has been earmarked for development. Beneath the surface of this oil-slicked slum lurks an international conspiracy so appalling that Dave will regret postponing his retirement"--Back cover.
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The boy who was buried this morning : a Dave Brandstetter novel
Rare Books
"The loss of a dear friend has retired P.I. Dave Brandstetter in a funk. The 1980s haven't been kind to Los Angeles, either, and the city Dave loves seems to be vanishing before his eyes. Dave isn't getting any younger, and his boyfriend, Cecil, is happy to see Dave's days of working dangerous jobs behind him. But Cecil also recognizes that work may be the investigator's best way out of his recent depression. When a former work colleague of Cecil's is shot by a live round at a paintball park in rural Southern California, he decides to encourage Dave to look into it. The deceased wasn't exactly someone Cecil or Dave would mourn. Vaughn Thomas was a troubled young man; a silver spoon elite who dabbled in militias and weekend warrior games while cultivating his connections with fellow white supremacists. Vaughn would have hated everything about Dave and Cecil, but it doesn't take long for the old investigator to see that the official story is anything but right. 'Emotions doesn't change facts,' Dave once told Cecil, but as Dave dips his toes deeper into the case, he quickly realizes that facts have a hard time with bigotry and bullets"--Back cover.
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The little dog laughed : a Dave Brandstetter novel
Rare Books
"Journalist Adam Streeter covered some of the most dangerous stories of the last quarter century, ranging from Cambodia to Siberia and anywhere troubled in between. Fearless, dashing, and more than a little resourceful, Streeter was renowned as much for his virtuosic writing as the shocking reality of what he uncovered along the way. Why would someone who lived so purposefully and with such demonstrable bravery turn a pistol on himself? Insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter has seen enough suicides to know this isn't one. Suspecting treachery, he digs into Adam's last story--an unpublished investigation into the whereabouts of a vanished South American strong man, called El Carnicero, the Butcher--and finds that Adam's death shows every hallmark of his bloody style. Dave quickly realized that some very powerful people would like him to drop the case. Dave's own lover, Cecil, would like to see him take it easy for once. But Cecil knows Brandstetter is not so unlike the man whose death he's investigating. The truth, to someone like Brandstetter or Streeter, is worth the ultimate price. As he attempts to finish Adam's story and get to the bottom of the journalist's death, Dave will find more than a few people willing to make him pay it"--Back cover.
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Gravedigger : a Dave Brandstetter novel
Rare Books
"Two years ago Charles Westover disgraced himself and his family when he was disbarred for bribery. Westover's daughter Serenity, disgusted with her once beloved father, ran away to a cult founded by a mesmerizingly handsome young man, a self-appointed messiah going by the grimly grandiose name of Azrael. The whereabouts of Serenity pass unknown for years until the police raid Azrael's compound and discover that the cult leader lived up to his ghastly 'Angel of Death' moniker. Thinking his daughter has been murdered, Charles Westover claims her life insurance, and then he too vanishes. Insurance companies don't like to cut a check without a body and especially don't like when the recepient [that is, recipient] is also missing. Hired as a private investigator, David Brandstetter quickly finds himself in a complicated maze of lies and hidden histories. It's not all bad times and extreme hazard for our man Dave. A passionate romance has entered his life with the reappearance of Cecil Harris, a handsome young African American investigative reporter for the local news station looking to get to the bottom of a different kind of story"--Back cover.
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Skinflick : a Dave Brandstetter novel
Rare Books
"Lon Tooker certainly fits the profile: big, strong, a Marine Corps veteran, and recently the target of evangelical crusader Gerald Dawson's wrath. Tooker's adult toys and pornography store on the local skid row has recently become the target of Dawson's church men's group and their destructive masked raids on 'un-Christian' businesses. When Dawson is strangled to death by someone of Tooker's size and ability, the police see a smut-peddler with a motive. Case closed. Death claims investigator Dave Brandstetter doesn't like it. By all accounts Tooker is a softy incapable of such a crime. Actual evidence is nonexistent and assumptions many. And Dave particularly doesn't care for assumptions based on someone's sex life. But Dave is also navigating new personal territory. His father's death has left him bereaved and for the first time in a long time without a job. Dave quit the insurance company his father built and has struck out on his own as a private investigator. Add in his breakup with his recent partner and he's a man unencumbered. It's the late 1970s and Dave may be aging a bit but he's still handsome, wealthy, and recently in possession of a new convertible Triumph. Looks like it's not all hard work"--Back cover.
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A country of old men : a Dave Brandstetter novel
Rare Books
"The wear and tear of a life spent pursuing the truth into harm's way is catching up with Dave. In fact, it has already caught him. The aged death claims investigator is old enough for his body to hurt even without all the compiled injuries he's sustained throughout his career. Yet when presented with a puzzle-like mystery, Dave can't help but be drawn in. Walking on the beach, a friend finds a bedraggled child who claims he has witnessed a murder. The victim is a drug-addicted pop star, and the obvious suspect is the dead man's ex-girlfriend--a drug addict whom the child saw standing over the body, gun in hand. In the final installment of Joseph Hansen's groundbreaking series, Dave looks for justice once more, hoping that he will also find a lasting measure of peace. Over the course of twelve novels spanning three decades of American culture--from the 1960s to the late 1980s--Joseph Hansen gave readers one of the truly great heroes of detective fiction"--Back cover.
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