Marked for Death

By Phil Reade

An ex-FBI agent with a past. A celebrity murdered. 24 hours to find a killer.

When a shocking murder rocks Los Angeles, former FBI agent Keira Summers is called in to find the killer. But, when the identity of the victim is revealed, Keira is pulled deep into an investigation that takes her across the city and into the dark underbelly of Hollywood.

Now, in a race against time, Keira must find the killer and discover why anyone would execute one of the most famous men alive.

If you like gripping mysteries, thrilling action and suspense, you’ll love the next installment in PT Reade’s BOOK HITS.

Click and get your copy of MARKED FOR DEATH now!

Tags: Book hits, book shots, crime, hard boiled mysteries, mystery, mysteries, noir, private investigators, hard boiled thriller, hard boiled detective fiction, hard boiled private investigator mystery series, thriller.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PT Reade
• Release date: Jul 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781537881157

Book preview

Reade

Chapter One

Never mix your work and personal life, Keira Summers thought. Knowing this to be true more than most. As the slim woman sat in her tiny but well-organized Los Angeles apartment overlooking the Echo Park lake, she scanned the notes for her latest case, recalling the events that led her to this situation.

Keira once had a promising career with the FBI. Recruited straight out of college and excelling in her studies, she threw herself into training at the Academy in Quantico and emerged a fully qualified agent, quickly gaining respect in the field amongst her peers. But her career had taken a sudden turn.

A turn she would never forget; one from which she would never recover.

Now Keira worked as a high-end private detective—a consultant to anyone that could use her skills. A brilliant criminal investigator, she was regularly hired by the LAPD and local businesses to investigate anything from grand larceny to industrial espionage. She was good at what she did and people were happy to pay handsomely for her skills.

Which is why, when she thumbed through the file on the desk, Keira felt a familiar headache growing. She brushed a lock of wavy auburn hair back behind her ear.

Idiot, she mumbled, scanning the bank statement.

Local industrialist Hugo Towne had recruited Keira for a very special case. A case that, he assured her, was a ‘total mystery.’ But the only mystery Keira could see was how the man could be so blind.

Funds had been going missing from Hugo’s personal bank account and despite changing his passwords and canceling his cards they continued to disappear in the hundreds, if not thousands.

A cool $1,545 in the most recent incident.

It wasn’t that Hugo couldn’t afford the losses, he was a wealthy man. Instead, he had brought her case on principle, a principle of wounded pride.

But Hugo hadn’t been telling the truth, and as Keira scanned his bank statements and card records the answer became obvious.

Every couple of weeks Hugo would visit Las Vegas on ‘Business.’ A couple of days later he would return with a hole in his bank account and questions to be answered.

Unfortunately, it was a classic scam.

A high-end prostitute was the most likely culprit, Keira reflected. They would spend a night with the mark—in this case, Hugo—as per the agreement. But as the man slept, the woman would rifle through his wallet and remove his cards, either scanning the magnetic strip herself or passing it off to another party, perhaps a hotel worker as an accomplice. Cloning the details would take less than five minutes and within ten, the card would be back in his wallet and everything would appear normal. The crooks were smart too, only spending relatively small amounts and always when Hugo was in town himself—so the withdrawals appeared genuine.

All things considered, the case appeared quite simple. The hard part would be explaining it to Hugo himself. A married man of twenty years.

How do you tell a millionaire businessman that the hookers he uses are stealing his money?

Keira