Bøker av 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.

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).

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!

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 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 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.

It is December 1999, and the spectre of Y2K hangs over the police department. More menacing yet, officers respond to a hate-fueled home invasion robbery. As the entirety of the River City Police Department prepare for possible chaos when the calendar turns over to the year 2000, they also must stop a gang of white supremacists who plan to use that same chaos to mask their biggest crime yet. Meanwhile, Officer Katie MacLeod falls under the suspicion of Internal Affairs. Officer Thomas Chisolm tries to keep the remnants of his platoon intact. Officer Connor O'Sullivan mourns the loss of his partner while he tries to care for the fallen officer's family. In spite of these significant, real life struggles on and off the job, the men and women of RCPD strive to stop the brutal robberies, to do what is right, and to survive.

Good Shepherd is a three-story collection of erotic crime fiction swirling with lust, revenge, and insatiable sexual gluttony. Three very different men and women sit at the center of each story. Yet, in the end, they're all the same-forever changed by forbidden temptation in a world where justice pretends to be blind. Contains the stories: "Good Shepherd," "Cassie," and "No Good Deed." *note: these stories appear in other Frank Zafiro collections (No Good Deed and The Cleaner, specifically).

Long time grifters Sam and Rachel love two things: each other and the grift. On the run from the mob, the two lovers move from one con to the next, winning some and losing others, but always finding a way to survive.Episodes 10-12 of Season Two begins with The Sound of Breaking Bones by Eric Beetner. In Mississippi, Sam and Rachel pose as a godly couple running an adoption service, but they quickly run afoul of a local deacon whose tendencies run more to the Old Testament than the New.Scott Eubanks penned Episode 11, Still Life with Suitcase. This debut author''s work finds Sam and Rachel in Florida, working a variation of the fiddle scheme. Their targets are new money but the art involved is from an old master. The danger itself, however, is elemental.Episode 12, Down Comes the Night, officially closes out season two. Series creator and editor Frank Zafiro picks up with Sam and Rachel right where they left off in Episode 11. Deciding to face the threat of pursuing mobsters head on, the couple devises a plan to finally be free and safe. The life of a grifter, however, holds little hope of either.