Dave Brandstetter investigates the murder of a wealthy Vietnamese marina owner and discovers a rash of suspicious deaths in L.A.'s Vietnamese community as he ventures into an alien and dangerous world.

"Rick Wendell wouldn't hurt a flea. The big, jovial owner of the Hang Ten, a surfing-themed gay bay on the boardwalk, was loved by regulars and new arrivals alike. But Rick was found naked and dead, with a local hustler named Larry Johns standing over him, smoking gun in hand. Wendell's death is ruled as a homicide and Johns is arrested. Everyone thinks it's a simple open-and-shut case. Everyone except the death claims investigator, Dave Brandstetter....

Dave Brandstetter, a California private investigator specializing in death claims, uncovers a toxic conspiracy while working a case in a neighborhood plagued by violence and inequality. Gifford Gardens has seen better days. As white families move away to the suburbs to flee the flooding and neglect, the city in turn cares less about fixing the problems. What was once a nice neighborhood has become a slum and a violent battleground for rival gangs....

Police Chief Ben Orton had a gift for making enemies. When his body was found, head smashed in, the people of his seaside domain were shocked--less because of the gruesome murder than because someone had finally dared to cross Ben Orton.

A cult leader named Azrael perpetrates a brutal mass murder and afterwards a slimy lawyer is trying to claim the life insurance policy for his missing daughter; it's the early '80s in Los Angeles and private investigator Dave Brandstetter has a new love in his life as exciting as this case is dreadful. Two years ago Charles Westover disgraced himself and his family when he was disbarred for bribery. Westover's daughter Serenity, disgusted with her...

Now working freelance, Dave Brandstetter digs into an evangelist's secret life. His father's death left Brandstetter with a hole in his heart and an inheritance in his bank account. The money allowed him to venture out on his own, launching a freelance insurance investigation agency that specializes in suspicious deaths. His first case is potentially explosive, and if he isn't careful, it could be his last. Crusading evangelist Gerald Dawson believes...

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...

Welcome to the coastal village of Green Haven, where someone has gone to sleep with the fishes... Jane Bunker returned to Maine to escape the mean streets of Miami. Surely whatever crimes are committed in this tourist-filled seaside town won't involve anything as dark or seedy as what she saw in the so-called Sunshine State. It's a bit of a shock, then, when Nick Dow, AKA the town drunk, turns up dead--and it's not the simple accident that everyone...

John Walker, a likable 24-year-old data analyst for McClaren Life and Casualty, a venerable San Francisco-based insurance firm. Walker spends the bulk of his working hours performing bloodless analyses of raw statistical data. All of that changes abruptly when he finds himself partnered with Max Spillman, a maverick security consultant hired to investigate a costly -- and ultimately tragic -- insurance scam involving Walker's former girlfriend, Ellen...

"Jane Bunker returns in another thrilling, small-town mystery set in Down East Maine. It seems like everyone in Green Haven knows that Jane Bunker has scored an invite to the ultra-exclusive Summer Solstice Soiree--and they all assume she'll be in attendance, as one of the few eligible single women in town. Of course, that's the last place Jane would like to be; hobnobbing and making small talk with the upper crust isn't exactly her idea of a good...