Bøger af Frank Zafiro

Sandy Banks has temporarily escaped the life of a vigilante assassin in Spokane and is trying to find his way back home. It won't be easy--the agent he evaded is determined to bring him to justice. She is tenacious and resourceful, dredging up the elusive truth of Sandy's past as she pursues him. Worse yet, there are mysterious forces operating in the shadows that threaten to change Sandy's life forever -- a life that has already taken him through... Some Kind of Hell.

Imagine, if you will: The last real cop in a changing world.A bottom-feeder fighting rumors.A meticulous P.I. battling story tropes.A revenge story involving a hamburger.The bittersweet nostalgia of a mob enforcer.A street racer trying to escape a small town.The confusing last words of a rich man.A surprise at the shooting range.A familiar robber.An untimely traffic stop.The confusing nuances of contemporary policing.These are the characters and stories you will discover in this collection from award-winning crime fiction author, Frank Zafiro!

Detective Katie MacLeod must contend with secrets from the past.2010. River City, Washington. Detective Katie MacLeod is already working a pair of burglaries involving a suspect who cuts window screens to enter homes and steals money and drugs from elderly victims. Then she gets handed a cold missing persons case that comes with political pressure.Katie must balance finding a dangerous burglar with discovering the fate of a woman who disappeared five years ago. As she digs into both cases, she finds frustration in one and a slew of secrets in the other.How far will someone go to keep their secrets? Detective Katie MacLeod is about to find out.

Things get a little blurred along the border...Carl is a Yankee cop in a small Texas border town. Isabella is a beautiful Mexican woman that everyone in town loves, including the hapless Pete and the wealthy, powerful Jack Talbott... but most of all, Carl. He runs into different kinds of trouble in two separate stories, first with Pete and then with Jack.The final story comes from a different perspective - lifelong La Sombra resident John Calhoun, who also runs afoul of the power structure in this small town.In the Shadow of El Paso displays the gritty elements of a mystery/police procedural in these three short stories by River City author Frank Zafiro. All three stories explore justice, love, race, class and the ambiguity that exists along the southern border of the United States.

It's 1988 in the once-affluent Washington Heights neighborhood of New York, and crack cocaine is king.Reinaldo Arenas is the brutal leader of the reigning Dominican gang selling the drug in that area, and Assistant District Attorney Frank Corda is the man assigned to take him down. Armed with a task force of DEA agents and NYPD detectives, Corda must negotiate the perilous world of politics, drug kingpins, and opposing police entities in his bid to rid Washington Heights of the drug scourge. Inspired by true events, and alternating between intrigue and action, Fallen City captures an iconic era in the history of New York and paints a human story on the canvas of one of its biggest challenges. This novel comes to you from the authors of The Last Collar.

After two tours in Vietnam and 25 years as a police officer, Thomas Chisolm is looking forward to a quiet retirement. That hope is quickly shattered when Mai, a ghost from his past, finds him and demands justice for the horrors she suffered during the Vietnam War...horrors Chisolm couldn't save her from. Now Chisolm must find the man responsible and bring him to justice to repay an old debt and in the hopes of putting his own demons to rest...once and for all. Chisolm's Debt is a River City novel featuring one of the series's most iconic characters. Follow Chisolm on his search as he explores the nature of moral debt, war, forgiveness, and guilt on his way to an explosive ending.

Russian gangs are taking over the River City underworld. The men and women of the police department are the last line of defense against the former Soviet bloc criminals. But both groups will soon learn how far the other will go to win this battle. They'll learn that the price of victory can be high. They'll learn that sometimes blood flows...And Every Man Has to Die.

Detective Jack "Mac" McCrae has lost his hero. Without children or any family, the retired detective takes the death of his mentor hard. When the man's son reaches out to Mac with a mysterious letter containing a startling confession, asking for his help, Mac finds he can't say no.He interprets the cryptic letter and begins to search for answers. Who did his hero wrong? And why? Mac's investigation reveals a decades-old case in which a bad man was sent to prison. But was it right or wrong? Just or corrupt? And regardless of the answers to those questions, a larger one looms -- what to do now? Mac discovers that some answers can lead to harder questions... and at times, this life requires even more from us.The second book in Jack McCrae mystery series. (*NOTE: Jack McCrae mysteries take place in the same universe as Frank Zafiro's SpoCompton series and Sandy Banks thrillers)

Detective Katie MacLeod has her hands full. It has been four years since her promotion to detective, and after paying her dues in property crimes investigations, she has made it to the Major Crimes unit. This is where the highest profile cases land-homicides, robberies, serious assaults, and sexual assaults.Katie catches two rape cases almost back-to-back. One victim is a prostitute with an unknown suspect... who Katie fears may be gearing up for more assaults. The other victim is a college student who has accused her boyfriend, a popular baseball player, of raping her at a party.Both cases have their own set of perils. Katie juggles her time investigating each one, encountering many obstacles-a lack of evidence in one, and wondering how to parse conflicting statements in the other.As she battles past these difficulties, Katie faces another fact... that both cases hit home with her in very different ways. Solving them becomes more than just a job for her, but something deep-seated and personal... something that may exorcise some of her own demons from the past.Or will they consume her? Note: THE WORST KIND OF TRUTH won honorable mention at the 2023 PSWA awards. It was also named as one of the best "truly independent" titles of 2022 by the IFA (Independent Fiction Alliance).

This collection includes the first three novels Stefan Kopriva mystery series: Waist DeepLovely, Dark, and DeepFriend of the Departed Plus BONUS CONTENT: two Stefan Kopriva short stories, "Five for Fighting and a Murder Misconduct" and "Cassie." Waist Deep: When disgraced former cop Stefan Kopriva is asked by an old high school classmate to find a runaway sixteen year old girl, he reluctantly accepts. Driven by guilt over a terrible mistake that drove him from the force more than ten years earlier, Kopriva battles old injuries, old demons and long ago memories as he unravels the mystery of the missing Kris Sinderling...and seeks his own redemption. Lovely, Dark, and Deep: A city councilman is dead of an apparent suicide. Ex-cop Stefan Kopriva finds himself drawn into the case, serving an unlikely client. Once involved, he discovers that things are not as they seem. Kopriva is quickly embroiled in dirty city politics. Along the way, he encounters pimps, prostitutes, gangsters, contractors, and the police as he tries to get to the bottom of what happened, and why. That is something no one wants, so Kopriva must risk his own freedom and his very life to find the answers, no matter how deep the corruption goes. Friend of the Departed: When defense attorney Joel Harrity asks Kopriva to look into a prospective client's guilt or innocence in the murder of her husband, he reluctantly agrees. He quickly discovers that answers to even the simplest of questions are nearly impossible to find. The deeper Kopriva digs, the more no one seems to want him to find the truth behind the death of Harrity's friend. Faced with a possible murderer that won't answer questions, a police department asking the wrong people the wrong questions, and threats of violence from an unknown source, Kopriva forges on, determined to discover the truth....even if it kills him. PRAISE FOR STEFAN KOPRIVA MYSTERIES: "A powerful tale of corruption and redemption."- Brian Triplett, independent reviewer "This book...brought Humphrey Bogart to my mind. This is his sort of story, and if there were an actor of that type around today, this book could make a confronting and probably prize-winning film...definitely worth the price of admission."- Karen Treanor, New Mystery Reader Magazine "Waist Deep is a hard-hitting story of a flawed hero trying to exorcise his demons. The subject matter explores dark moral territory, it's arguably not horribly shocking compared to certain real life situations taking place today. Further, in the best hardboiled tradition, finding the truth involves unearthing the scum from beneath the veneer of respectability."- Debbi Mack, author of Identity Crisis and Least Wanted "[A]nother intense and very good read that borders on the noir designation. Frank Zafiro often writes of dark things and this is another case of that and therefore the book is not a light read in any sense. It is also yet another case of why Frank Zafiro is building an incredible career and deserves to be on your reading radar."- Kevin Tipple, independent reviewer "Zafiro nails the truth like a properly thrown jab/cross combo. You won't see it coming until it smacks you in the nose."-Colin Conway, author of the 509 series "The Stefan Kopriva books are a great series. Interesting characters, a mystery that seems at the right level...not too vast. I love that things aren't tied up with a neat bow. Things don't always work out great. Sometimes it's just the best you can do at the time. I like that Kopriva gets beat up, he doesn't win every fight. He doesn't always know how to proceed in his investigations. The solutions he comes up with seem in keeping with his character. I hope for more books in this series."- Sharon McKenna, from a 5-star Ama

A violent robber is loose in River City. Meet the cops that must take him down.Stefan Kopriva, a young hotshot. Katie MacLeod, a woman in what is still mostly a man's world. Karl Winter, about to retire but with one more good bust left in him. And Thomas Chisolm, a former Green Beret who knows how dangerous a man like the Scarface Robber can be.These are the patrol officers of River City - that mythical thin blue line between society and anarchy. They must stop the robber, all the while juggling divorces, love affairs, internal politics, a hostile media, vengeful gang members and a civilian population that isn't always understanding or even grateful.Written by a real cop with real experience, Under a Raging Moon is like a paperback ride-along. Enjoy the ride.

Sandy Banks is the last of The Four Horsemen, a vigilante group of ex-cops determined to right the injustices of a broken court system. But now the project is disintegrating, putting him in the middle of chaos.Betrayed by his final partner, blackmailed by the project head and pursued by federal agents bent on busting the case wide open, Sandy scrambles to escape this mayhem with his soul intact.From the author of the River City crime series.

The demons that drive John "Mocha" Moccia to obsess, to put absolutely everyone under a microscope, and scratch away at every last clue, make him the best hardnosed detective in Brooklyn homicide. But these same demons may very well write the final chapter in his career.He isn't the kind of detective to take no for an answer, but in his most recent case answers are damn hard to come by. Partnered with the conscientious Detective Matt Winslow, Mocha endeavors to solve the murder of the wealthy and beautiful Jessica Shannon, a woman who had every reason to live.As Mocha and Winslow strive to push forward the hands of time and solve the murder, their imposing lieutenant breathes down their necks, suspects are scarce, and all of the evidence seems to be a dead end.With the last precious grains of sand falling through the hourglass, Mocha pushes ever forward, determined to make an arrest, even if it means this collar will be his last.From the authors of Fallen City and No Dibs on Murder.

Tanner Fritz has it all-he's good-looking, well-liked, fabulously wealthy, and has a beautiful wife. He's a veritable well of goodwill and happiness.So why do his four best friends want him dead? Each of them believes they have a genuine reason-he stole Marty's wife, swindled Carson out of a fortune, caused Barry's traumatic brain injury, and... well, no one is exactly sure why Serena wants to kill him. The foursome's grievances quickly escalate into something truly terrifying, planning Tanner's murder-only to run into a seemingly insurmountable hitch. Who actually gets to do the deed? Who has suffered the most at his hands? A cacophony of bumbling exploits follow as each tries to off Tanner Fritz, while the other three sabotage those efforts. Sprinkled with site gags and belly laughs to tickle both the cultured and the philistine, No Dibs on Murder pulls no punches... and neither do these harebrained would-be killers. From the authors of Fallen City and The Last Collar.

Former cop turned investigator Stefan Kopriva has long endured the fallout from the fatal mistake that drove him from the police force fourteen years ago. Eking out his redemption one bit at a time, Kopriva has finally reached a point in his life that finds him stable and reasonably happy. Then the mother who abandoned him when he was a toddler returns to River City and completely shakes up his world. Though professing to be sober and seeking to reconnect with her son, Kopriva is initially suspicious of her intentions. But his own desire to fill the void that she created all those years ago urges him to accept, and perhaps even forgive, her. Not only that, but the woman seems to be sincere in every way, causing Kopriva to trust her and to believe. What follows is a shocking betrayal and a murder that sends Kopriva on perhaps the darkest journey of his life. He seeks out the truth, even though it isn't what he wants it to be. For better or worse, Kopriva knows that hope dies last.

Billie Jo Higgins may be small, but she is a skilled burglar, using her craft to keep her and Toby, her addict twin brother, afloat in a hard world. It is a difficult life, but the two are surviving. They take care of each other. Then B.J. stumbles into the wrong house at the wrong time and sees something she shouldn't. The explosive secret she now holds is dangerous, and the person it threatens immediately pursues B.J. with the solitary intent of silencing her forever. Suddenly, "survival" takes on a whole new meaning... (*NOTE: Jack McCrae mysteries, Sandy Banks thrillers, and Stanley Melvin PI Stories also take place in the shared universe of the SpoCompton series)

An ex-cop looking for redemption...an American man and an Irish lass interwined in love and violence...a cop with a conscience that he doesn't always listen to...a retired cop looking to repair a broken relationship with his drug-addicted son...a Yankee cop in the West Texas...these are the characters you'll meet and explore in No Good Deed.

These are the many and varied characters of River City, brought to life in short stories that fill in gaps and moments within the River City series that the novels don't explore, including: *A frustrated crime scene cleaner*An off duty cop in a jam* A patrol officer who believes in a strange fate*A holier-than-thou Internal Affairs whose world gets turned upside downPlus those that are criminally insane, surrounded by sadness or just trying to get by in a tough world. Read these exciting 17 stories set in River City before you move on to the next novel in the series!

Book #2 in the SpoCompton SeriesBoone has been prospecting with the Iron Brotherhood outlaw motorcycle gang for almost a year, trying to earn his patch with the club. When a simple muscle job goes terribly wrong, his world changes forever. He is quickly plunged deeper into a world of drug and intimidation, and the lines between right and wrong blur. The bonds of brotherhood that he forges with other members clash with the dark actions they take. His girlfriend, Faith, represents a danger of another kind, but Boone can't stop himself where she is concerned, either.When someone closest to him dies, and rampant rumors of a rat in the clubhouse puts everyone in danger, Boone comes to learn what it really means to live his life...in the cut. Authors note: A "cut" is that leather vest that outlaw motorcycle gangmembers wear. It usually has a rocker on the back with the club name and city/region.

It is the nightmare of every community - a school shooting. When a disturbed teenager masterminds this terrible event, everyone in River City is plunged into the darkness that surrounds it.The students and teachers try to survive, and the men and women of RCPD try to save them. But when things go horribly wrong, everyone seems to be looking elsewhere for someone to blame. Officer Katie MacLeod is among many who discover that the nightmare doesn't end when the shooting stops. Takes place in 2001.

When defense attorney Joel Harrity asks Kopriva to look into a prospective client's guilt or innocence in the murder of her husband, he reluctantly agrees. He quickly discovers that answers to even the simplest of questions are nearly impossible to find. The deeper Kopriva digs, the more no one seems to want him to find the truth behind the death of Harrity's friend. Faced with a possible murderer that won't answer questions, a police department asking the wrong people the wrong questions, and threats of violence from an unknown source, Kopriva forges on, determined to discover the truth....even if it kills him.

Book #1 in the SpoCompton SeriesJake Stankovic has been flying below the radar for years, dealing safely in stolen property crime with his two-man crew. But times are tough, so he decides to step up to the big money with a drug deal. Everything that can go wrong, does. The deal goes bad, a vengeful detective sets his sights on Jake, one of his crew might be a turncoat, and a woman from a long past affair suddenly reappears. All of this would be complicated enough on its own, but for Jake, it's even worse.The woman is the detective's ex-wife.And Jake Stankovic used to be a cop.Now Jake must face new problems and old vendettas in an all-in proposition with lives on the line. He has to find a way to get his money back, keep the girl, and beat everyone involved... At Their Own Game.

When disgraced former cop Stefan Kopriva is asked by an old high school classmate to find a runaway sixteen year old daughter, he reluctantly accepts. Driven by guilt over a terrible mistake that drove him from the force more than ten years earlier, Kopriva battles old injuries, old demons and long ago memories as he unravels the mystery of the missing Kris Sinderling...and seeks his own redemption.

A city councilman is dead of an apparent suicide. Ex-cop Stefan Kopriva finds himself drawn into the case, serving an unlikely client. Once involved, he discovers that things are not as they seem.Kopriva is quickly embroiled in dirty city politics. Along the way, he encounters pimps, prostitutes, gangsters, contractors, and the police as he tries to get to the bottom of what happened, and why. No one wants this outcome, so Kopriva must risk his own freedom and his very life to find the answers, no matter how deep the corruption goes.Lovely, Dark, and Deep is the second Stefan Kopriva mystery.

SUGAR GOT LOW is an eclectic collection of short stories set in the River City universe, including a tale of grifters, a prequel story to the well-regarded Ania series, several trips back to the early days of River City and one to La Sombra, Texas. Enjoy a Walter Mitty homage set in San Francisco, and a deadly day in Roman Britain, the heartbreaking story of a junkie, and the suspenseful one of a murderer in a black car. At the end of it all, you'll experience the dark but inspiring title story of perseverance that was only made possible because of a misunderstood lyric. Four-time Derringer finalist Frank Zafiro weaves a lucky thirteen tales drawn from throughout his career with one thing in common - characters you may love or hate, but will certainly feel.

A family in conflict. A missing daughter. Secrets upon secrets. And time slipping away... The Knight family is well-known in Spokane, thanks to the family patriarch, Solomon, founding a regional grocery chain. Each of Solomon's adult children seem to have gone their own way. Jocelyn is a cop. Nicky is a criminal. Susan and Harold are both striving to make it in the business, each in their own way. Marigold is an artist. And Lily, the youngest and frailest of them, is missing-sucked into the dark recesses of the drug world. When Solomon calls his children to band together to find their sister, all of them agree to help. But each has their own struggles and their own secrets. Will they find Lily before she is too far gone to save? What will they each sacrifice to rescue her? Shades of Knight is book #5 in the hard-boiled SpoCompton series.

Jack "Mac" McCrae is about to retire. Without children or any family, he looks back over his career and his life and finds himself wondering what, if any, impact he's had on this world.Then a young woman reappears with a photograph of her mother - and his old lover - and an unknown child that might be her sister...and his daughter.Mac agrees to accompany her to a small town in Oregon to get to the bottom of this mystery. Who is the little girl in the photograph? Is she his daughter? And where is she now?But Mac discovers that no one in this small town wants to answer or even acknowledge these questions. He will have to find a way to overcome the stranglehold that the Tate family has on the town and work his way to the truth about who the little girl is, even if it kills him.The first book in Jack McCrae mystery series.