The Harry Starke

On a balmy afternoon in May 2002, wealthy stockbroker Peter Nicholson was turkey hunting with three friends in Prentice Cooper State Forest when he tripped, fell on his shotgun, and accidentally shot himself … dead, but did he? Fifteen years later, as a last resort, Nicholson’s mother asks Harry Starke to find the truth. As we all know, Harry loves a cold case, but … as always, there’s a twist in the tale.

“Stand absolutely still, Amanda,” she read, “and you won’t get hurt.” Two seconds later a bullet from a sniper’s rifle shattered the driver’s side window of her Lexus SUV. That’s how it began, early on a Friday morning when Amanda, Harry’s wife, found the note tucked under her windshield wiper. The incident was quickly followed by a series of events that would put his family and friends in deadly danger and test Harry to his limits.

Isla Tansy Mortenson Wallace was a noted local neurosurgeon, wife of local veterinarian Jim Wallace, and one of Chattanooga’s movers and shakers. That is until she was found dead on her own property. Did she fall off her horse? Was she thrown? Was she murdered? And if she was killed, by whom, and how, and why? Why does Lt. Kate Gazzara not want Harry Starke anywhere near the case? Lots of questions and no answers.

It began when an FBI informant was brutally gunned down outside a soccer stadium. A tactical nuclear weapon has gone missing somewhere in the Middle East and is thought to have been smuggled into the United States by a small group of Iranian terrorists intent on chaos and destruction. The target? Unknown, but the FBI’s local director is convinced that it’s the Sequoya nuclear plant and that the clock is ticking. Convinced that the threat is real and that his only link to the terrorists is Harry Starke’s nemesis, Shady Tree, he turns to Harry for help.

An elite force of private military contractors. A ragtag band of aging war heroes and civilians. It began with a simple kidnapping. It ended in an all-out private war. In Harry Starke’s world, nothing is ever quite as it seems. His wife is lying in hospital in a coma. His best friend and business partner is not who he says he is. Once again Harry says never again, but when his intellectually disabled uncle is kidnapped and becomes a pawn in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Harry Starke is at it again.... So are his enemies. Backlash is an action-packed, high-intensity crime fiction thriller that will keep you resisting the pause button. Kidnapping. Murder. Revenge... The world around him is full of misdeeds and misfortune. It’s an all-or-nothing battle that Harry must win...or die.

The game’s afoot, only Harry has no idea... Not yet anyway. It seems his enemies are endless, and his career and life are always at stake. This time, though, he may not make it out unscathed. Has Harry’s past finally caught up with him? Is this the end?

There’s something strange going on at Clearwater Psychiatric Hospital. Director Dr. Norman Gill has a list in his desk drawer. He keeps it locked away. It’s for his eyes only. The list has seven names, with seven dates. Seven deaths in 11 months. Harry Starke will have to sharpen his skills for this one. Is there a lunatic loose in the hospital? A staff member, a patient? Does someone else have a list, and if so...how many names are on it?

The poker game had not yet begun, but we found him at the table, shot three times in the chest. My name’s Harry Starke. I’m an ex-cop turned private investigator. It was the week before Christmas. My friend was dead. I looked down at his body and I made him a promise. I promised to find his killer and break his arms no matter what it took. Bad idea. Everyone knows you don’t make promises like that, not even to the dead.

When Kelsey Hart disappeared three years ago, her older sister, Brit, never gave up hope. But as time passed, and she heard nothing from her sister, she knew she needed help. Enter PI Harry Starke, the man with a reputation for solving the impossible cases. As Harry digs into Kelsey’s disappearance, he quickly realizes that nothing is as it seems. Slowly, he uncovers dark secrets and a web of lies that will shake the Hart family to its core. And with every clue he uncovers, the mystery deepens, and people begin to die.

One dark Friday evening in October, Dillon Harper and Brian McDaniel went out to drink a few beers and smoke a little marijuana. Their bodies were found hours later on the railroad tracks north of town. They’d both been struck by the midnight train. The autopsies revealed copious amounts of alcohol in their system so their deaths were deemed accidental. However, the brothers of the two men believe the investigation was botched and, knowing them as they did, don’t believe they were drunk, high, or stupid enough to just lay down on the railroad tracks and go to sleep.