"Buddy Steel's maverick behavior as a police officer has won his commander's respect and a promotion to LAPD homicide detective. Almost immediately, he is asked to join a task force working to bust a major meth shipment to LA from Mexico. One of the two undercover agents on the case has gotten himself killed by the Mexican cartel but not before spilling that a female agent is deeply enmeshed within their organization. The agent in question—Kara Machado—barely learns that her true identity may soon be exposed to the cartel when she is whisked abruptly to their family compound in Mexico, cut off from any communication with the outside world.
But Buddy has personal history with Kara, and he's determined to bring her home safely. Enlisting the aid of three friends from his military days and working through back channels, Buddy launches an off-the-books foreign invasion to find not only Kara but also the storage location of the drugs bound for LA. With the odds and time against them, Buddy and his team know it will take a miracle to accomplish either objective—and another to get them all out alive."
"'The perfect substitute for that good-time trip to California you've decided not to take after all.' —Kirkus Reviews
A new breed of brazen criminal forces Buddy Steel into unfamiliar territory. Will he outsmart the ingenious thieves before they get the best of him?
Buddy Steel, acting Sheriff of Freedom, California, is enjoying some well-deserved R&R at a friend's mountain hideaway when he's called home to investigate a home invasion—at his father's address. The break-in is just one in a series, perpetrated by ingeniously inventive burglars. To complicate matters, Buddy must also investigate a spate of cyber crimes targeting local businesses and individuals—an area well outside of his experience and comfort zone.
Already on the trail of the cybercriminals is LAPD Gang Enforcement's foremost computer geek, Detective Quinn Anthony. Buddy teams up with the unconventional—and much younger—brainiac to trace the convoluted trail of the hackers. From the adjunct of a vicious LA-based cartel to outside of US borders, Buddy and Quinn race to take down the hackers and recover the spoils. The closer they get, the more danger they face; and the more danger they face, the closer they become . . ."
"When San Remo County Acting Sheriff Buddy Steel is deputized by the California Coastal Commission to investigate a reclusive Russian billionaire who has repeatedly violated state law by obstructing public access to his vast beachfront property, he makes a shocking discovery.
This makes Buddy, a former LAPD cop dragged home by his Sheriff father's ALS diagnosis to 'temporarily' head the department, dig in his heels and face down the Russian's imported goon squad.
At the same time a string of random murders in the county's normally sleepy town of Freedom places the Sheriff's Department on high alert as it seeks to apprehend a serial killer whose crimes are so perfectly executed they leave no forensic evidence.
Buddy enlists an old adversary in his war with the Russian. She's a legal shark from LA, a savvy negotiator—and former lover. He needs to carry this fight to court. And he needs more backup—from the Sheriff's Department staff, not the Sheriff, who resists being sidelined. Nor Freedom's mayor, Buddy's stepmother.
Wild card cynic Buddy Steel barrels his way through the myriad obstacles that defy him. He may not want the job but his quest for serving the law is relentless."
"When legendary Sheriff Burton Steel summoned his son Buddy home from LAPD Homicide, a reluctant Buddy agreed. Burton is debilitated by ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease. While Buddy is to cover his back, not an assignment he wants, the clincher is it's his last chance to connect with his proud, overbearing parent.
What Buddy didn't expect was to encounter crime in Freedom, a privileged coastal community a hundred miles north of Los Angeles, as vicious and challenging as that of the city.
The brutal murder of a prominent Freedom High School sports coach leads Buddy into a clandestine universe of sexual deception, play parties, unwitting athletes, over-privileged youths, treacherous bullies, and shocking malfeasance.
At the same time, a sudden scourge of graffiti is disfiguring both public and private property. Outraged, knowing he has few legal weapons to wield, Buddy is forced to find new and challenging ways to thwart the street artist, or artists, responsible. Irreverent and imaginative, not to say manipulative, Buddy is just the man for the job.
Buddy's plate is soon full and the stakes are enormous as he sets about bringing resolution to a glut of seemingly irresolute occurrences."
" MISSING PERSONS is the first book in the new Buddy Steel mystery series by New York Times best selling author, Michael Brandman.
Steel...smart, aggressive, ironic, spare and cynical...has been content working homicide at the LAPD until his father, the legendary Sheriff Burton Steel, falls ill with Lou Gehrig's disease. Sheriff Steel is headquartered in Freedom, a privileged coastal community located a hundred miles north of Los Angeles. His health failing, he asks his son Buddy to come home to cover his back and to groom him to be his successor.
Buddy reluctantly agrees. He returns to Freedom despite having outgrown its small town limits, wary of his father's authoritarianism.
No sooner does he hit town than Buddy learns the wife of the high-flying star of a Freedom based world-renowned television ministry has gone missing. A visit to the woman's home leads to a hostile confrontation with her husband's family and Buddy's realization that something greater than simply a missing person is at stake.
Allegiance between father and son provides the backdrop for Buddy's complex investigation of twisted families, avaricious con artists, violent gangs, drugs, corruption, and murder. And added to the mix is an enigmatic femme fatale who succeeds in upending Buddy's tenets regarding contemporary relationships.
MISSING PERSONS is its own book, yet crime fiction fans will find it a joy to trace its literary lineage from Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker through to Sue Grafton and Michael Connelly."
"The woman on the bed was barely out of her teens. She wasn't exactly beautiful, but she'd tried to make the most of her looks. And now, alone in a seedy beachfront motel, she was dead.
Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone doesn't know her name. Whoever she is, she didn't deserve to die. Jesse starts digging, only to find himself caught in the crosshairs of a bitter turf war between two ruthless pimps. And more blood will spill before it's over."
