Mike Angel Mysteries Series

SEE the characters in this novel on Mike Angel's FACEBOOK page! https://www.facebook.com/MikeAngelPI Lust stalks Mike Angel as he stalks his father’s killers in this complex mystery. The first of the Mike Angel Mysteries of historical, erotic novels. Set in the New York/New Jersey and Chicago areas in 1960. Plenty of action and seduction in this case connected to the infamous Purple Gang of the 1930s. Burdened by the unsolved murder of his father, a career NYPD lieutenant whose “voice” warns whenever danger is near, 30-year-old Mike Angel is a Korean vet and bored private investigator of insurance fraud. When a wealthy ex-college buddy hires him to tail Joe Ambler, a petty blackmailer, Mike fixates on Kimbra, a stunning beauty who kills the blackmailer with a “lucky shot” from a peewee .22. Mike impulsively helps her dispose of the body and finds himself on the wrong side of the law. Mike discovers the dead man was the grandson of a feared and legendary mob leader, founder of Detroit’s Purple Gang of the 1920s and 30s. When a well-dressed thug comes looking for Ambler, and the wealthy buddy who hired Mike runs off with Kimbra and is murdered in the Bahamas, Mike is turned around on the case. While searching for Kimbra, Mike stumbles across connections to the Russian-Cuban branch of the ring responsible for a string of unsolved murders in three states. The discovery leads to a chain of events and a frame up. Mike is convicted of murder, and is sent to the federal prison at Trenton. A lustful but single-minded newspaper woman, Heddy McBright, visits him in jail right before a break is planned.

In another complex mystery, Julia Gateswood hires reluctant PI, Mike Angel, to find her missing sister, but Julia’s social position and her sister’s sordid past make this anything but a simple case. Julia’s a power-hungry ex-beauty queen, married for ambition to congressman Henry Gateswood, a charismatic ex-professor running for a vacated US Senate seat from Illinois in 1962. When Julia’s sister, a loose woman with past mob connections disappears, Julia calls on private eye Mike Angel, who quickly learns his new employer isn’t everything she seems to be, but what she is beyond a doubt is a great hypnotist of Mike’s libido. Can Mike live up to his father’s dictum, never to bed a client? Before Mike is hardly into the case, he’s visited by Julia’s strange secretary, who later finds the missing sister’s headless body in the guesthouse of the Gateswood estate. Mike and his unofficial partner, Rick Anthony, a 25 year veteran of the NYC detective force and, whose vocabulary suffers from too many NYU grad classes, get to the crime scene before the police and follow clues that pit them against powerful Chicago mobsters. One twisting aspect of Mike’s investigative instincts is often timely warnings from the “voice” of his late father, and also through sensations felt in a long scar Mike won during a shootout with the Russian mob who was behind his father’s death (in Dark Quarry). He also struggles with a desire to commit to Molly Bennett, his office manager and love interest, while conflicted with rescuing attractive babes who cross his path. The 3rd in the Mike Angel Mysteries of complex, historical, erotic novels set in Chicago in 1962.

In this complex mystery set in Portland, Oregon, 1965 Mike befriends an eccentric veteran with a drinking problem, whose estranged wife has been sleeping with hoodlums and racketeers. One night the man shows up at Mike’s office asking for a ride to the US side of the Canadian border. On the way the man discloses his wife had been murdered and he was being framed. Expecting a nice quiet life and a new start with love interest Molly Bennett, Mike is shaken by the history of crime and corruption still going on in the Rose City. Mike agrees to find the woman’s killer, but the more he follows her trail the more suspects are in the picture, with too few clues. The Police Chief enlists Mike to infiltrate a famous whorehouse poker game to look into connections to the murder between the Teamsters, Big Jim Elkins, and other local hoodlums. Rick decides to put on his professor speech and infiltrate the house a day earlier than Mike. When Rick doesn’t return in twenty-four hours, Mike heads in the Victorian red light house of infamous Madam Little Rusty to find himself inside up against seven armed men, including three in police uniforms, and a lust-minded bombshell. In this episode Mike is tempted and tasted by two seductive roommates, one who attacks him sexually at gunpoint. The 6th in the Mike Angel Mystery series of historical, erotic novels.

When a grotesque and melodramatic female seeks protection from a convict Mike helped to send up, his scar needles heat up. After she slips Mike a mysterious substance in his coffee he suffers near total paralysis. While she rifles his office, he can only watch her take a file and leave. The next morning he awakes and tries to identify what was taken. Once he pinpoints the case file he stumbles through a chain of events involving three murders, an interview with a convict at Joliet, and a reinvestigation of the diamond heist and killing—which in turn uncovers a suspicious international gem company with ties to Argentina, escaped Nazis, the Daley administration, and the CIA. Throughout the episode Mike struggles against attraction for Rebecca Lutz, a vulnerable blonde employed by the gem company whose sister is named in the stolen file. Rebecca becomes the client and helps Mike uncover the truth about the company. Tension builds from this triangle, which includes his office whiz Molly Bennett, and parallels the building suspense in solving the murders and capturing the escaped Nazi. A twisting climax in this the 4th in the Mike Angel Mystery series, complex, historical, erotic novels set in Chicago in 1963.

In this complex mystery set in 1964 amidst racial divisions in Chicago, Mike receives an anonymous note with a 1934 $10,000 Federal Reserve Note with a cryptic message that the bill is payment for an unspecified future trouble. Tracking down the sender spins into a 40 year old kidnaping case involving four US Army officers in World War One, stolen gold with connections to the French Bonnot gang (the first to use autos in bank robberies), a Babylonian sex goddess cult, and trouble from Henry Ford's grandson. Death stalks Mike and Rick on this one, and threatens their client. A parallel case involving mysterious rental house fires in a neighborhood targeted for urban renewal by the Daley Administration, puts Mike and Rick in the path of City Hall hired thugs. Murder, action, suspense and the typical quicksand that is Mike’s struggle about love and commitment to Molly, in this 5th of the Mike Angel Mystery series of complex, historical, erotic novels.

The 2nd in the Mike Angel Mystery series of complex, historical, erotic novels is a thriller full of interesting characters and plenty of serious conflicts. Set in Chicago and New Orleans in 1961. 32 yr old Mike is determined to get answers and stop for no one, especially after the woman he loves gets involved in the plot. The reader will like Mike’s tough, fearless attitude, as well as his humor and sarcasm that add a spark of great amusement through the story. Mike’s older sidekick Rick Anthony adds a lot to help decipher small clues and gather information that Mike would not have access to himself. All this helps to bring the story together in a fascinating way. Right away Mike and Rick are thrown into a serious conflict with the burning building and the girl hanging from a rope. This sets Mike on the track to find the answers and resolving the problems. With each step of the way, things keep getting worse. This makes for a compelling plotline. Ultimately, Molly is thrown into the fray and things get pretty rough, but Mike manages to get past all the obstacles, save his woman, and point his finger at the ringleader in the last scene. The reader can’t help but be satisfied. The characters are strong with personality traits, motivations, and appropriate backgrounds for the roles they play. There is a lot of good dialogue, often confrontational in nature.

In late 1966, the world’s richest man, Howard Hughes, took occupancy of the top two floors of the Desert Inn on the Strip in Las Vegas. After his time was up he refused to vacate the space, and wound up buying the Inn for thirteen million dollars from the Mob. Earlier that year Mike and Rick were called to an empty apartment where the body of a world-famous glamour model, a twin, was posed with flowers. The scene tipped Mike’s equilibrium, and when the surviving twin hit town he struggled with his darker fantasies. Mike crosses the line when he breaks into a gallery’s back office and dark room to discover a strange pornographic film involving the dead twin and an underage boy. After viewing the film with Rick and Molly, Mike is persuaded to turn it over to the police, and take the heat for his actions. The film mysteriously disappears from the police evidence locker. Hired by the surviving twin, also a model who makes Molly a bit jealous, the case leads Mike to Las Vegas, connections to local racketeer Big Jim Elkins, L.A. mobster Mickey Cohen, and then to Howard Hughes in Las Vegas. Can Mike gain entrance into the Hughes penthouse and verify Hughes’ possession of the porno film involving the dead twin? He’ll need an ingenious plan, which is supplied by a sexy Swedish blonde he meets at the newly opened Caesar’s Palace. If the plan to get in works, can he escape alive and get out of town? He cannot trust the Vegas authorities or even the FBI, who have been surveilling Hughes for bigger issues and offer no help. Set in Portland and Las Vegas in 1966, Dark Fantasy is the 7th in the complex Mike Angel Series, and follows Dark Moon. Just over 72,000 words.

Mike is shot after chasing a naked blonde down a dark street one wet night in Portland, Oregon. His near death experience, surgery and a long recovery convince him that the time’s right to marry Molly Bennett. But first Mike vows to catch the killer, whose victim turns out to be the granddaughter of the L.A. mob boss, Nick Licata. The girl was involved with a Marxist group headed by a Reed College professor, who heads anti-war rallies at the school and holds perverted bondage sessions in his basement. The girl’s brother hires Mike to protect him and soon after the brother’s homosexual roommate is bludgeoned to death. Investigating the two murders, Mike uncovers a communist plot hatched by the professor, a conspiracy to bomb a Navy destroyer at the river wall during Portland’s Rose Festival in 1967. After deducing the scheme’s target hour, Mike, Molly and Rick scramble to identify all the conspirators and stop their plan to use an Vietnam War protest as cover. Dark Conspiracy is the 8th in the novel series, each stand alone. Complex plot, seduction, strong adult content.

In 1969 private eye Mike Angel works a routine missing persons case that falls into Albina, the black section of Portland, where a seductive light-skinned siren coaxes Mike to help black businessmen carry out a boycott of corrupt white bar owners and illegal gambling. She also coaxes him carnally, as does an infamous black fan dancer, in cahoots with white bar owners run by mysterious brothers. Black businessmen hire Mike to lead a boycott that threatens to inflame racial passions, all the while Mike closes in on an elusive kingpin who directs arson, kidnapping, and murder, including framing Mike for killing a black leader. Another complex and action-packed stand alone mystery novel, #10 in the series. Adult language and scenes.

In Dark Drama, the 12th novel in the series set in Portland in 1971, Mike Angel stumbles into his office during a power outage to discover a stunning look-alike for Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr posed in his loveseat. At first he talks to the woman, then discovers to his horror she’s been murdered with a bullet in her brain. His partner discovers Mike’s business card in the dead woman’s panties. The murder leads Mike to the girl’s family, then into a thicket of smut film productions made to order with Hollywood diva look-alikes for rich Arab shieks. Chasing leads takes Mike to Boise, Idaho City, and Tijuana, as he identifies all the actors and crew who filmed a death scene where blanks were switched with live ammunition. Seemingly everyone he talks to had motive and opportunity. Break-ins, and a stand-in for porno screen tests yields valuable clues. Mike takes direct action in a convoluted mess of a case he grows to hate.

Mike and Molly are married on Christmas Day in 1967, but upon leaving the Reno chapel a stray bullet strikes Molly in the head. As desperate weeks and months pass with Molly in a coma, Mike cannot go south to find the shooter. Sanity forces him to take on a routine insurance fraud case, reported stolen jewelry by a mysterious redhead. Her connections throw Mike into the world of international drug cartels, ice pick murders, and even an apparition in Tonopah, Arizona, where Mike searches for a missing FBI secretary, also a redhead. He tangles with the Cali drug cartel in an abandoned airplane hangar from WWII, then hides out in a Tonopah motel with the irresistible wholesome secretary he rescued. The two redheads in this episode couldn’t be more different. Mike struggles to find boundaries between Platonic friendship, seduction, and fidelity to Molly. The case also involves Mike interviewing a dismemberment killer on Nevada’s death row in Carson City, and falling into Latino gang dangers in Sacramento. #9 in the series of stand alone complex mysteries. Adult language and sexual situations.

After witnessing a barefoot bank robber two blocks from his office, an iron-fisted boss who ran the longshoreman’s union since the 1930s hires Mike to find the killer of his granddaughter. The victim was a loose-morals woman who slept with both sides of a labor war. The victim’s sister was a client’s secretary in his prior case, and Mike is drawn to her petite seductiveness and unabashed claims on him. Efforts to get information inside the union are fraught with danger and difficulty. His client is adamant Mike is not to pry into union affairs, but every lead takes Mike there, in ever deeper danger, until he’s shanghaied in a shipping container en route to Tokyo. Throughout the case Mike is tempted by three different women, one of whom comes on to Molly as well. Once again Mike goes solo as Rick is mostly retired and Molly decides her lack of reflexes is a field liability. She takes a job with brother in law’s insurance firm. Mike and the police see things as wrapped up, but are they? Set in Portland, Oregon in 1970, Dark Union is number 11 in the series.

After deciding to quit investigations due to Molly’s condition, Mike takes renovating houses as a new career. He buys one for a dollar to move and flip, but discovers a corpse in a wall, wrapped in canvas. The wrapper turns out to be a parachute and the FBI at first identifies it as the very chute D.B. Cooper jumped with after hijacking Flight 305 on Nov. 24, 1971. After Feds identify the dead man as an ex-paratrooper, then deny the parachute as Cooper’s, the dead man’s sister hires Mike to find the killer, Mike finds himself back in Montana, working with the impressible Dakota Cassidy. An FBI cover up, another murder, a kidnapping and a chase to Canada embroil Mike in one of his biggest cases — the search for Cooper. Set in Portland, Oregon in 1973. Adult language and situations.

In 1972 Mike takes on a case searching for a stolen inheritance. The next day his dowager client is killed on a downtown Portland street. Clues she left leads Mike on a meandering case with murder, seduction and twists over three states, chasing a carnival con man and his stolen and counterfeit money. The finale carnival act involves a dangerous dance of death over an alligator tank. A twisted path takes Mike to Hardin Montana for the reenactment of Sitting Bull’s victory over Custer at Little Big Horn. Along the way Mike learns his suspect is connected to the most elusive counterfeiter in US history, “Mister 880.” Mike suffers hypnosis by a stunning belly dancer, is fascinated in Butte Montana by an Annie Oakley type and strung up and left to die in Vale, Oregon. 13th book in the stand-alone series.

Behind a remote lodge overlooking Crescent City California, stands a mysterious lookout tower used to signal the shoreline and ships at sea. The signals coordinate marijuana shipments. Mike seeks two women missing from the same area. Were they abducted by a drug cartel? Mike comes in contact with weird personalities, including a professional wrestler, a wide-eyed motel desk man, a blonde with a past who plays him for a sap, and an ex-Nazi who the US government has installed in a group exploring biological warfare, Operation Paperclip. He follows the husband of one of the missing women and discovers the remote lodge and lookout tower. He sneaks inside and eavesdrops on the group’s nasty plan. He joins forces with the FBI to raid the lodge headquarters but ignores orders to stay back. Adult situations and language. Number 19 in the series set in Portland, Eugene, Bandon and Crescent City in 1978.

Mike becomes embroiled in the Patty Hearst kidnap case when he discovers the missing man he seeks was invited to join the Symbionese Liberation Army, the ragtag revolutionary group who kidnapped Hearst. Mike navigates feelings for an admired female FBI agent and gets caught in the web of a voracious nymphomaniac, half-sister to the missing man. Mike doctors up murder scenes and chases links from the man-child movement to change age-of-consent laws, precursor to NAMBLA. The 15th in the series, set in Portland and Berkeley, California in 1974.

In Dark Arson (#16) set in Portland in 1975, Mike’s neighborhood is victim to a series of mysterious arson cases, including a house he was renovating. When an old lady at the end of his block is killed in a fire, her daughter, a stunning redhead psychiatrist from Olympia, Washington, hires Mike to find the arsonist. His investigation leads to a famous bank robber of the 1930s and 40s, Eddie Bentz, who consulted on hundreds of bank robberies for various crooks and hid untold wealth in flophouses around the country. Mike teams up with Dan Ahrens, a Seattle detective and learns that past accomplices of Bentz are squeezing him to find out his hiding places. Fire chases Mike as he chases a man thought to have drowned in a 1962 escape from Alcatraz. Lots of twists and turns in this adult language and seduction situation novel.

“Dark Sleep,” #17: Mike’s check for a missing person case bounces, leading him to the client’s house, where he discovers a triple murder: the client, his girlfriend and a mystery man in black. The client’s wealthy mother hires Mike to sort things out. Mike chases leads about the dead girl to Southern Oregon, where he falls into the clutches of the Domino woman pervert and her sex machine. Action includes getting sapped, escape from a cement cell, shootout in the fog with two thugs, snooping into an illegal casino, and chasing down the mastermind behind the murders, and the plot to recover missing jewels from the Romanov collection of Russia. Adult language and situations, set in Oregon in 1976.

#20 in the series set in Portland and British Columbia. This last episode begins when a vision from Mike’s first big case visits his office using lies and hypnosis to achieve her ends. The woman is a spitting image of her aunt who died in a hail of bullets in the 1960 case, a woman Mike became obsessed with. More diamonds from that old case surface. They get passed around between a murder in Spokane that fits into the South Hill rape cases; an attack by a gang on his partner Rick and wife; Mike being waylaid by a Ma Kettle type and two daughters in Rogers Pass; and a shootout at a remote cabin, hideout of Thuggees. Survival for Mike, Rick, Molly and Cathy hang by a thread, with a shocking conclusion. Will Mike survive his last big case? You’ll love this fast moving complex case. Adult language and situations.

Dark Oath, #18 in the Mike Angel PI Series. Drawn to follow a mysterious blonde with a more than ample backside, Mike falls into a case chasing a stolen relic of ancient Hawaiian King Kamehameha the First, reputed to bestow long life to the age of 130. After his Korean buddy is murdered in a downtown Portland alley by one of the several elements after the artifact, Mike feels obligated to forge on, thwarted by repeated female traps, one involving abduction by the Chinese Triad gang. Set in 1977 in Portland, and the Hawaiian Islands aided by the famous prosecutor Charles F. Marsland, Mike helps a brother-sister team, whose late father uncovered the relic. Adult language and situations: sex, violence, violent sex and sexy violence.