Showing results by author "John Lutz" in All Categories

In the year 2038, there’s only one destination that can play host to the world’s wealthiest adventure seekers: the Pengalaman Island Resort and Virtual Reality Theme Park. Located on a private South Pacific island, guests here live out their wildest fantasies in custom-made virtual reality simulations while also enjoying the usual amenities of an exclusive five-star getaway. All is relatively breezy until famed billionaire and avid guest, Mr. Wagner, goes missing within a virtual simulation. His only hope? A daring rescue led by Derek Ambrose and his ragtag search party.

Joel Brandt swears he’s never met the woman before. His wife dead six months before, the small-time businessman is perplexed when Del Moray police inform him that a local woman, Marla Cloy, has accused him of harassing her. According to her, Joel has been lurking outside of her house, following her car, even assaulting her at the grocery store. Brandt says it’s all a lie, but the police don’t believe him. He goes to Fred Carver, an ex-cop turned PI, for help clearing his name.

Intrigue, crime, and murder create suspense in this edge-of-your-seat collection of cat mystery stories whose plots are all centered on a beloved feline, written by some of the finest, best-selling mystery writers of all time.

From master mystery author John Lutz comes this collection featuring a gripping man-on-the-run novel and four of his best pieces of short fiction. In The Truth of the Matter, Lou Roebuck is a successful advertising man with all the trappings - prestige, position, a flashy car, money, and a beautiful woman on his arm. He's also a compulsive liar, and what begins as a fib on his expense account leads to trouble that compounds like loan shark interest. His past, and the people in it, has caught up with him, again.

Thirty-five short stories by Edgar-winning novelist Lutz are included here, following a perceptive introduction by Nevins. Reflecting the ingenious plotting and characterizations in Tropical Heat, Nightlines and the author's other full-length adventures, these entries are a bonanza for discriminating listeners.

When he meets Bob Ghostly, it’s hardly the first time that Fred Carver has been asked to find a missing spouse. But Ghostly’s tale about a beautiful woman who fled for no apparent reason doesn’t quite convince Carver, who presses for more detail. Finally Ghostly admits it: His wife was beautiful, intelligent, and kind, but she was also a heroin addict. She fled their Florida home with half their savings - nearly $10,000 - and he’s afraid she’s going to put it straight into her veins.

Listen to mystery stories by today's top writers and the masters who inspired them. The idea for this collection came to Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Lawrence Block when he was asked, "What is your favorite mystery story?" Block compiled this unique collection by posing the same question to some of today's favorite writers of the genre, including Stephen King, Tony Hillerman, and John Lutz.

What was once New York's proudest skyscraper is now a heap of ruins, littered with the bodies of the dead and the dying. Beyond it, like firecrackers on a string, the rest of the targets wait to be ignited, unless the demands of the Jericho Man are met.

Wilson Capp is an honorable man in a dishonorable profession. While the others involved in the notorious Gateway scandal that toppled a president told all and made their fortunes, Wilson Capp kept the faith, kept his silence...and was rewarded with prison. Now Wilson Capp is free. And he's out to make his former associates pay the ultimate price for their betrayal.

Martin Karpp was Alan Hobson, a compulsive thief. He was Willy Bennet, a flagrant homosexual. He was Jay Jefferson, a fanatic right-winger. He was Paul Liggett, who hid his true nature behind a mask of mystery. Martin Karpp was in the nation's top maximum security prison, convicted of assassinating a presidential candidate. That should have been the last the world would ever have to fear from this madman and his many personalities.

Are you ready to maximize your earning potential by investing in the essentials and implementing expert advice? Are you prepared to completely transform your home to attract potential buyers? In The Smart First-Time Home Seller's Guide, you will discover how to fetch the highest price tag possible for your home in any given setting. To do this, all you need is a willingness to accept help and to apply the steps when competing against today's market.

Twenty-Seven short stories from Edgar Award-winning author John Lutz. Private Eyes, mysteries, and memorable characters.

Twelve tales of mystery from the pen of best-selling author John Lutz, Shadows Everywhere collects much of the author's early work. You'll meet everyone from a “hardscrabble farm woman” to a volatile trucker with an explosive cargo, a cliff driver with dreams of gold, and women who are digging for it. Not every PI is a good guy, and not every villain gets his due. These tales twist and turn, surprise and entertain. Flowing from the imagination of a master story-teller, the stories in Shadows Everywhere are a classic glimpse into the worlds of a rare talent.

Hattie Evans, a retired schoolteacher, isn’t one to fuss. When her husband drops dead of a heart attack, she does her best to move on without too many tears. After all, Jerome was 70 years old. But an anonymous note, asserting that her husband was murdered, shakes her resolve, and she seeks out help. The police are useless, save that they send her to Fred Carver - a former Orlando cop who turned PI when a bullet shattered his left knee. Her case takes Carver into the depths of Solartown: an old-age mecca where 70 is the new 40, golf carts are the only way to get around, and death from natural causes is nowhere to be found.

Along a beautiful stretch of beach sits a state institution for the criminally insane. Among its inmates are a man who killed his wife with a wine bottle; an ex-butcher who put strange substances into meat; and a man who pushed his daughter out of a 40-story window. When an inmate is found dead on the beach, the rest of the men eye each other coldly - for each of them had a motive to murder the unpopular victim.

Fred Carver is hired by his good friend, Lieutenant Alfonso DeSoto of the Orlando police, to investigate the death of his uncle at Sunhaven, a local nursing home. Carver is harassed by Raphael Ortiz, a viciously depraved thug bent on discouraging Carver from investigating Sunhaven.

A major casino robbery turns sour when the getaway car breaks down in the desert. The robbers come across a nearby cabin but it is inhabited by an old loner. The three robbers try and hold him hostage, but he escapes. It becomes their biggest mistake.

A serial killer is on the loose, a maniac wielding a homemade flame thrower fashioned from a scuba tank. He has murdered three people - and one of them is private detective Fred Carver's eight-year-old son. Carver will do anything to find his son's killer and exact a father's revenge.

When the men find him, the boy’s legs look like they were run through a wood-chipper. He’s bleeding heavily and near death, but he still has strength to tell them of the monster that attacked him: a dark, massive creature that emerged from the bottom of the lake. The child dies before he can say more. Sheriff Billy Wintone has seen too much superstition, drunkenness, and rage in this small Ozarks town to believe the delirious boy’s tale of a monster lurking under the lake’s dark waters. Like it or not, however, Wintone must scour the woods for the man or beast who killed the child before the start of fishing season.

Private eye Fred Carver investigates the slaughter of an ex-cop, the murder of a man who was found stuffed to the gills with cocaine, and other crimes.