Showing results by author "Stephen J. Cannell" in All Categories

Leaving L.A.'s Parker Center, Shane Scully and his wife, Alexa, agree to meet at home in one hour. Shane gets there; Alexa doesn't. In the middle of the night, he's called to a crime scene on Mulholland Drive: The African-American victim, who appears to be a Crip gangbanger, has been executed gangland style. Shockingly, the body is in Alexa's car and her gun is found nearby. But Alexa is missing.

Meet Chick Best - a middle-aged, self-absorbed, disaffected, California dot.com millionaire with a trophy wife. Though concerned about his life and family, Chick resigns himself to a miserable state of acceptance, until he experiences unrequited love at first sight - which leads to deadly consequences.

At a Hollywood party with his wife, Alexa, Detective Shane Scully overhears a famous producer make a suspicious remark about the strange deaths of his two ex-wives. This becomes more than just police business, because the party is to celebrate the engagement of the producer to Alexa's closest friend. Against his wife's wishes, Shane begins to look into his past.

Leonard Land, a computer genius and a multi-personality maniac, is systematically murdering women. Wired to the cyberpunk subculture of Death Metal and Satan worship, he shifts personalities from The Rat - smart and cunning - to The Wind Minstrel - God and the Devil. Renegade U.S. Customs Service agent John Lockwood teams up with Chicano master hacker Malavida Chacone and stunning forensic criminologist Karen "Awesome" Dawson to track the deranged genius.

Back on the LAPD and hailed as a hero after taking down a deadly gang of rogue cops, Shane Scully finds himself unwittingly involved in a criminal scheme to take over the movie business. Soon, he will have to go deep undercover to take down a Hollywood conspiracy. At a glamorous party with his new wife, Alexandra, Shane hears a world-famous director make an ominous remark about the deaths of his ex-wives. This is more than police business, it’s personal: Alexandra’s closest friend is engaged to the producer.

Shane Scully and his partner are assigned to the case of "the Fingertip Killer"—a serial murderer preying on homeless veterans in Los Angeles. Every two weeks he strikes: he beats his victims, then shoots them in the back of the head. Once they're dead, he cuts off their fingertips, closes their eyes, and tosses them in the river. The latest killing, however, does not quite fit the pattern. It appears to be the work of the Fingertip Killer, but Scully suspects an elaborate copycat murder meant to hide a criminal conspiracy.

What would war be like if the foot soldiers were genetically engineered with superhuman strength and speed, and with just enough intelligence to understand commands and follow them blindly? Attorney Herman Strockmire becomes involved when one of his employees is torn limb from limb by one of the prototypes. Herman, his daughter, and ex-LAPD detective ignore all threats and plunge headlong into harm's way, finding themselves involved in a nightmare beyond anyone's wildest imagination.

In Shane Scully's most terrifying case to date, two elite SWAT units from the L.A. Sheriff's Department and the ATF appear to be engaged in a deadly midnight war. Officers from both agencies are being sniped at and murdered in vertical coffins. As the violence escalates, the mayor directs the LAPD, the only uninvolved and unbiased law enforcement agency, to investigate. Shane's wife, Alexa, under orders from Chief Tony Filosiani, assigns him to the case.

Stacy Richardson is a microbiology graduate student at the University of Southern California, taking her final doctoral exams. In the middle of her "Quals," Stacy learns that her husband, head of the university's Microbiology Department, has "committed suicide" while on sabbatical at a super-secret bio-weapons lab known as the Devil's Workshop. Meanwhile, two train-riding hobos, "Lucky" Cunningham and "Hollywood Mike", are traveling near Vanished Lake, Texas, where the newest generation of bio-weapons is secretly being tested. A bio-accident at Vanishing Lake turns the town into a living hell.