BOONE-BELL Series

Private investigator Carl Boone finds himself pulled into the sexual undercurrent flowing through American culture in two unrelated cases.   His office is on solid footing, with Marianne Bell now working as his office manager and assistant. When the wife of a local publisher seeks his help in an extortion case, he is captivated by her extraordinary beauty, only to learn that beauty is not always what it seems.   At the same time, local attorney Clive Townsend, a significant source of business for Boone's office, seeks his help. A friend of Townsend's fourteen-year-old daughter faces a charge of second degree murder. His investigation develops in fits and starts, branching off into unexpected and, in Boone's case, dangerous areas. What looked like a case involving drug-fueled sex between two teenagers becomes something else entirely.

As "Disguises" opens, Boone is staying at Deborah's home while recuperating from his recent shooting. Given the extent and severity of his injuries, recovery is a slow and frustrating process for him. Deborah, having grown accustomed to having him in her home, suggests they consider living together. Hesitant but game, he tries to come to grips in his mind with what would be a very different lifestyle and living arrangement than he is accustomed to. Marianne, his assistant and aspiring partner-to-be, receives a call from a widow in financially desperate straits, seeking information about her husband's death a year and a half earlier. From all indications, this will turn out to be a charity case with little to no chance of a good resolution. Boone finds it impossible to say no. Attorney Clive Townsend, a source of referrals for Boone's office and close personal friend, meanwhile asks Boone to locate evidence helpful to a female divorce client. This request involves conduct that borders on illegality. For help, Boone calls on Tom McAvoy, an old friend from their days together in the military, having no idea of what will ultimately develop. As if he doesn't have enough to demand his attention, a divorcée asks Boone to locate her adult daughter who left home several weeks earlier. The woman is concerned her daughter may about to 'do something bad.' Boone agrees to take the case with reservations. As these cases unfold, he is forced to recall a lesson he learned much earlier in life. Everyone is not who, or even what, they seem to be.

It was nearly midnight on a Saturday night in early June. Boone received a call from Mazie Tucker, the wife of New York State Police Detective George Tucker, a close personal friend of Boone's. Mazie had returned home from a night out with friends to find Tuck in his recliner, dead, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The flat-panel set was blaring a cop show, the volume turned up as high as possible. Unable to accept her husband of thirty years would take his own life, and distressed by State Police focusing on suicide, Mazie reached out to the only person she could trust. Marianne Bell, Boone's partner, tries to help a young woman victimized through identity theft. Even though she eventually solves the case, her client's subsequent actions, undertaken despite Marianne's advice, result in tragedy. As Boone investigates the circumstances of Tuck's death, he is faced with two possible suspects, neither of which he feels responsible, even when one of them is charged with the murder as a result of DNA evidence. Only through dogged pursuit of available leads does he learn the identity of the killer. But will he be in time to prevent another killing? 'Unmasked' reintroduces the character of Alexandra Burton from the earlier work, 'Lens Capture,' where readers also met Tuck for the first time. Alex is now a New York State Trooper and possible ally of Boone's. Or is she something different?

In 'Guardian Angel,' the sequel to 'BOONE', Boone reluctantly allows Marianne, his office assistant, to work with him on a fraud case that seems routine. Things go well, Marianne captures incriminating photographs of the target which wraps up the case. Her accomplishment however results in catastrophic consequences for her. While the effects of the fraud case have yet to unravel, a friendly confidential informant from Boone's days with the New York State Police turns to him for help after being fleeced by a crooked cop, one Antonio Caruso. The informant's body is discovered the following morning. As Boone begins to investigate, he finds himself being shadowed by Albany police tipped off by one of the city's gangs. After working on site at one of the office's clients, Marianne later finds herself charged with murder as a result. The evidence against her seems to be rock solid. Frustrated by the seeming intractability of both cases, Boone lashes out at Deborah, jeopardizing their flourishing romance. While defense attorney Clive Townsend tries to untangle the charges against Marianne, Boone struggles to find the link between both cases. Just as he seems to be able to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together, someone else has a very different plan, leading to explosive consequences for both Boone, and Marianne.

In 'Calling Hours,' attorney Clive Townsend, Boone's friend and source of business for the office, refers what looks like a garden variety case of insurance fraud. Burglars had raided a local warehouse, and the insurance company suspects inside involvement in the heist. As Boone investigates, the case turns out to be more complex than it first appeared. And when people inside the company start dying, Boone has to wonder who is the killer's next victim, and whether this is a case of insurance fraud, or something else? A teen-aged girl seeks Marianne's help in recovering some private and embarrassing digital images of herself on social media. Marianne tries to help the girl, who she suspects has been groomed for pornography by an online predator using social media as a hunting ground. Only after it's too late to help does she learn the teen-ager was on the verge of being forced into prostitution. Knowing the criminal justice system is weak, if not ineffectual against predators, what can she do? What must she do? Meanwhile, Marianne is spearheading the effort to locate larger office space to accommodate agency growth. Boone is resistant to the move, but with the spiraling crime in downtown Albany, and Marianne making him an offer he can't refuse, gives in. At the same time, Marianne comes to realize her life alone since the murder of her fiancé Toph (Journeys and Unaccountable), lacks the fulfillment of loving someone, and being loved in return.

Wracked with guilt over his failure to prevent the murder of his friend's widow, Mazie Tucker, and convinced it was dangerous for anyone to become close to him, Boone leaves Albany and everyone he knows behind, searching for anonymity and seclusion. He believes he has found such a place in the sparsely settled community of West Harper on the eastern shore of Chautauqua Lake. But his black dog of depression, stalking him throughout his career in law enforcement and as a licensed private investigator, continues to hound him. The death of a victim, or a friend, had always affected him deeply, causing Boone to consider himself an abject failure. As he sinks into a deep depression, he becomes convinced that suicide is the only way to end the pain. Eventually, it falls to Tom McAvoy, Boone's friend, and Trooper Alexandra Burton to try to convince Boone to return to Albany, and those who care for him. At the same time, his partner Marianne tries to keep the office afloat, hoping to give Boone time to come to grips with Mazie's death. She hires a co-worker to assist her. Investigating a case referred by Clive Townsend, Marianne uncovers a smuggling operation that results in tragedy for her co-worker, and puts her own life in jeopardy. Tom McAvoy tries to keep Marianne in hiding, staying one step ahead of those who mean her harm. As a consequence, she learns more about the sex industry than she ever wanted to know, and the Amish. The smuggling operation uncovered by Marianne turns out to be something much worse than any of them could have ever predicted.

'Dead Close' finds Boone and Marianne Bell, who is four months along in her pregnancy, settled in their new office space outside downtown Albany. Representing the owner of a vintage clothing shop accused of murder, Clive Townsend seeks Boone's help investigating his client's background to determine any possible motive for the crime. In addition to assigning surveillance tasks to three of Boone's former snitches, Marianne undertakes a forensic audit of a small woodworking company whose founder suspects his partner of embezzlement. The further Boone digs into the shop owner's background, the worse things look for Clive's client. The only bright spot is meeting the shop owner's single employee, Pearl Jagoda, a young Polish immigrant who recently became a citizen. As he untangles the shop owner's background with Marianne's assistance, people who might be able to provide him with valuable information wind up dead. Marianne's audit of the woodworking company, and the CPA who appears to be part of the embezzlement scheme, takes on a sinister turn when her client, and his wife, die in a house fire later determined to be arson. As Boone comes close to cracking the case, he is stunned to realize just who the killer is. And Marianne, believing the worst is behind her on her own file, learns too late that the worst is yet to come.

'Strained Mercy' opens with a more introspective Boone as he adjusts to married life with Deborah, while carrying the office by himself. Marianne works from home to care for infant Caden, recently out of NICU. Things for her go from bad to worse as developments threaten her marriage. Aside from a voicemail from a climate scientist Sarah Richardson, worried about threatening phone calls from a climate change cult, his principal concern is Abe Freed, his journalist friend. Abe is investigating MS-13 and the Albany drug trade, and Boone worries for Abe's safety. At the same time, Abe seeks advice from Boone about helping Chantelle, a high-end prostitute, escape a vicious pimp. Boone decides to consult Tom McAvoy and Clive Townsend for assistance. Both cases involving Freed come together in unexpected ways, with tragic results. When the climate scientist disappears without a trace, Boone and Albany police detective Mark Wallace are frustrated by the lack of any clues as to who has taken Richardson, or her whereabouts. The case leads to an explosive resolution, presenting ethical challenges for Detective Wallace.

Boone takes a call from a client seeking help locating a missing person. And not just any missing person. Frank Boland wants Boone to find his father, who abandoned his family on Frank's fifth birthday some fifty years  earlier. Boone thinks about his own father, who abandoned Boone's mother and infant Boone. Worse, this case dredges up memories of Boone's childhood, memories that he would rather forget, and his own guilt over his son's estrangement. He takes the case, having  no way of knowing this will put him on a trail more convoluted than anything he has faced before. At the same time, Marianne is retained by Sara Bixby, an insurance adjuster for Mutual of New York and past client of the agency. A dealership in rare luxury automobiles has filed a claim for $3 Million Dollars over the loss of a one of a kind Bugatti in a freak accident. Marianne jokes with Sara about an earlier insurance fraud case that resulted in her being shot. Neither of them can possibly foresee how her jest will impact them both, especially Sara. Boone finds himself in one dead-end after another, with a client who seems to be after something very different from finding his father. Marianne's skills in dark web research are tested to the limit, only to reveal a nexus between Boone's search and Marianne's investigation, exposing them both to possible danger.