Stanley Bentworth mysteries Series

Stanley Bentworth is not all that tough. Previously a homicide cop, he drank his way out of a job and now runs a one-man private eye agency. When a wealthy financier needs an anonymous blackmailer found in a life and death situation, Stanley seizes the chance to earn a fee. If he fails, the blackmailer outs his client to the mob, giving the client a one-way ticket to the landfill with Stanley an unwilling passenger on that ride. He knows he must not fail, no small feat given that Stanley Bentworth is not all that tough.

When homicide detective Stanley Bentworth fires his weapon in the line of duty for the first time, he kills a youth from the projects. The tragic event pulls at his conscience, and he deals with Internal Affairs (the “rat squad”), a city psychiatrist, and outraged citizens. On administrative duty pending the investigation, he infiltrates Narcotics to ferret out corrupt cops. But the Lieutenant sends him undercover on the street to ferret out an enigmatic drug kingpin, and Stanley must do battle with the rat squad, dirty cops, outraged citizens, and gangbangers.

When the Captain gives him the boot again, soft-boiled detective Stanley Bentworth finds himself back in his P.I. office in search of new clients and cases to solve. His first assignment sends Stan and his associate Sanford as bounty hunters to capture a bail-jumper, a botched adventure that puts Stan in the hospital and results in a warrant for his arrest on federal kidnapping charges.   Now on the lam under an alias, Stan works as a bag man for what turns out to be a domestic terrorist support organization. This unlikely association finds him locked away in a remote safe house that he calls “Gitmo North.” He does battle with the Department of Homeland Security, corrupt narcotics detectives, his former wife's jealous husband, and a mob assassin, all out to deliver lethal payback for the questionable deeds of his checkered past.   With so many hurdles to clear and so many foes to face, Stanley struggles to keep everything in balance, all the while juggling disabling migraine headaches and disruptive romantic relationships with a beautiful lawyer and his ex-wife.   Just another routine month in the life of Stanley Bentworth, Private Investigator.

With a month off from Homicide, soft-boiled detective Stanley Bentworth bails out to accept an invitation from an old pal to consult as head of security for a high-tech startup corporation. But when a company executive is discovered with a bullet in his brain, Stanley finds himself drawn into a homicide investigation with overtones of corporate espionage and domestic terrorism, all the while butting heads with his counterparts in the local police. Instead of a much-needed rest, he is up to his eyeballs in the cold, heartless, and even sinister world of corporate finance, giving new meaning to the phrase hostile takeover.

P.I. Stanley Bentworth spends his days staking out cheating spouses and chasing down bail jumpers and his evenings drinking Jack and pursuing women with a pulse. When he helps a lovely young prostitute discourage an obsessive stalker, he finds himself fixated on the hooker and immersed in a complicated murder case. That’s not unusual, except that this time Stan is not only trying to solve the crime, he is the number one suspect. The homicide detective tells Stan in no uncertain terms: Stay out of our way or else. Stan can take a passive back seat on a bar stool and risk serious prison time. Or he can plunge in to save himself and get busted for impeding the official investigation. Either way he loses.  

Trouble follows P.I. Stanley Bentworth like a baby duck. When a brutal murder at sea interrupts his romantic getaway with Grace, his new girlfriend, the ship’s captain recruits Stan to investigate. Stan and Grace soon find themselves the targets of a desperate killer who intends to thwart the investigation whatever it takes. If Stan fails to expose and overcome the villain, he could lose Grace forever and find himself treading water and feeding the sharks somewhere in the expanse of ocean known as the Bermuda Triangle.  

P.I. Stanley Bentworth is on the lam and in trouble again, this time accused of the murders of two mob enforcers. Not only is there a contract on him, the local cops want him too. This time, he’s the prime suspect with means, motive, and opportunity. Means? Both goons are killed by bullets from Stan’s guns. Motive? One of them beats Stan’s young assistant to a pulp; the other one buries Stan alive. Opportunity? He’s carrying and he has no alibi. Stan is hard pressed to keep himself out of the slammer and off the slab. His only hope is to solve the murders himself, something he is equipped to do, but something that won’t be so easy given that Stan is on the lam.

Once again Stanley Bentworth, soft-boiled PI, finds himself infatuated with a beautiful client, one who hires him to find her missing aunt, a resident at a local nursing home. What should be a simple case of an elderly lady wandering off becomes what Stan and his associates learn is a horror story, a diabolical scheme involving Medicare fraud and mass-murdered old folks, frozen and stored away and ultimately cremated, all for profit.