Lita Mendez was a thorn in the LAPD's side. An aggressive police critic and gang activist, she'd filed countless complaints against the department. So when she's found dead in her home, Shane and Hitch fear the worst: that there's a killer in their ranks. Outside the crime scene, Nixon Nash, the charismatic host of a hit reality show called Vigilante TV, has set up shop with his television crew. Nash's show is dedicated to beating the cops at their own game, solving murders before they can. Now he has the murder of Lita Mendez in his sights and he presents the detectives with a choice: either join his team or prepare for a public takedown. But Scully suspects that Nash isn't the folk hero he seems. If a detective got in his way, just how far would the TV host go in the name of self-promotion? On the heels of The Prostitutes' Ball, called "the best Scully yet" (Kirkus Reviews) and "perfectly fresh" (Booklist), this new novel from the celebrated author has Detective Scully risking everything to save himself, his family, and the job he loves. Praise for Stephen J. Cannell "A master storyteller." -Michael Connelly "A great storyteller who keeps you nailed to the page." -Ted Bell "Cannell is the gold in crime fiction." -Stephen Coonts
It's a few days before Christmas when Detective Shane Scully and his wife, Alexa, respond to a call in the Hollywood Hills. The crime scene is the pristine backyard swimming pool of a once immaculate mansion on Skyline Drive, the site of an infamous murder decades prior, in which a family was killed in cold blood on Christmas Eve. In the ensuing years, the house has been shuttered and left exactly as it stood on that terrible night. Shane and Alexa arrive to discover the aftermath of a lavish party. The revelers have fled, leaving three dead bodies, all shot with the same gun. One is acclaimed film producer Scott Berman. The others, a pair of gorgeous women in their early twenties. Scully is assigned to the case along with his new partner, Sumner Hitchens. Hitch has a reputation in the department as a self-promoter; he sold the story rights to one of his cases to a film production company - and he has the millions to show for it. Scully and Hitch begin to investigate, and the case looks to be open-and-shut: The two young women were hired prostitutes, and there's a security video of an angry husband firing on all three. A simple case of revenge. But there's a catch: The detectives discover a single spent bullet casing that doesn't match the rest. From that single bullet emerges a story that spans thirty years - a tale of love, murder, suicide, and one of the biggest financial frauds in L.A. history. It's a story fit for the screen - and Hitch is determined to get it there, no matter what it takes. But someone has gone to great lengths to cover up the crime, and as Scully and Hitch get closer to the answer, they find themselves in a killer's crosshairs. The case could be the makings of a blockbuster Hollywood film - but only if Scully gets out of it alive.
It's a few days before Christmas when Detective Shane Scully and his wife, Alexa, respond to a call in the Hollywood Hills. The crime scene is the pristine backyard swimming pool of a once-immaculate mansion on Skyline Drive, the site of an infamous murder decades prior, in which a family was killed in cold blood on Christmas Eve. In the ensuing years, the house has been shuttered and left exactly as it stood on that terrible night.
Shane and Alexa arrive to discover the after-math of a lavish party. The revelers have fled, leaving three dead bodies, all shot with the same gun. One is acclaimed film producer Scott Berman. The others, a pair of gorgeous women in their early twenties.
Scully is assigned to the case along with his new partner, Sumner Hitchens. Hitch has a reputation in the department as a self-promoter; he sold the story rights to one of his cases to a film production company - and he has the millions to show for it. Scully and Hitch begin to investigate, and the case looks to be open-and-shut: The two young women were hired prostitutes, and there's a security video of an angry husband firing on all three. A simple case of revenge.
But there's a catch: The detectives discover a single spent bullet casing that doesn't match the rest.
From that single bullet emerges a story that spans thirty years - a tale of love, murder, suicide, and one of the biggest financial frauds in L.A. history. It's a story fit for the screen - and Hitch is determined to get it there, no matter what it takes. But someone has gone to great lengths to cover up the crime, and as Scully and Hitch get closer to the answer, they find themselves in a killer's crosshairs. The case could be the makings of a blockbuster Hollywood film - but only if Scully gets out of it alive.
In The Prostitutes' Ball, master of crime fiction Stephen J. Cannell takes readers into a world he knows better than anyone: the place where moviemaking and law enforcement converge. What results is his most powerful, suspenseful, and entertaining novel yet.
Abandoned by his parents as an infant and shunted from one foster family to another, Shane was ultimately raised in an orphanage called Huntington House. The only positive thing in his young life was the attention of the home's director, Walter "Pop" Dix. Pop, an avid surfer, would take a small group of kids for early morning surfing. He was big-hearted, patient, and the father none of them had ever had. That was thirty years ago, and Scully long ago put that difficult chapter of his life behind him. He is now an accomplished detective, married to Alexa, the gorgeous lieutenant and acting commander of the LAPD detective division. But Shane is forced to revisit the memories of his childhood when he learns that Pop has been found dead, the victim of an apparently self-inflicted shotgun blast. He has left a note asking six specific people, all of whom attended Huntington House, to be his pallbearers, and Shane is one of the chosen. He and his fellow pallbearers are convinced Pop would never have killed himself. That leaves murder. But why would anyone kill Pop? And who? Together, the pallbearers embark on a dangerous mission in pursuit of justice, and for retribution against the men responsible for Pop's death. It takes them up against an unexpected adversary whose power and influence far exceed anything they could have imagined-violent, dangerous men who are determined to keep a lid on the secret behind Pop's death, no matter who gets in their way.
Charged with felony misconduct in a high-profile solicitation of murder case, Scully is faced with an impossible decision: either quietly resign from his job as a detective for the LAPD or face criminal prosecution. His wife, Alexa, the chief of detectives, leaves him, seeking a divorce for his dalliance with the accused in the case, a well-known Hollywood actress. His son Chooch won't even speak to him. Life as Scully knows it is over. Or so it seems... In order to make a living the only way he knows how, Shane seeks employment from a police department that has been known to hire rejects from other departments: the Haven Park PD. The department is a hotbed of corruption, in effect the personal goon squad and collection agency of the town's mayor, Cecil Bratano. Ushered into the department by his new partner, Shane takes his lessons from one of the dirtiest cops around. But things in L.A. are hardly ever what they seem. Relentlessly harassed by an overzealous FBI agent and under the constant, violent, and hyper paranoid scrutiny of his new comrades-at-arms, Shane finds himself in a snare. His estranged wife may be the only one who can get Shane out of this mess alive. The question is: Is she willing to?
Meet Chick Best - a middle-aged, self-absorbed California dot.com millionaire. Other than his house and high-priced foreign cars, Chick's most expensive possession is his trophy wife, Evelyn. Evelyn is good at spending Chick's money, money that has pretty much run out. Another problem is his drug-addled sixteen-year-old daughter, Melissa. Though concerned about his family, Chick has resigned himself to a miserable state of acceptance. That is, until he, Evelyn, and Melissa take a Christmas vacation in Maui. With this, Chick's life changes... Chick experiences unrequited love at first sight when he observes Paige Ellis emerging from the hotel swimming pool. His obsession, exceeded only by his need to possess her, isn't diminished when he learns that she is happily married. Instead, Chick's obsession compels him to drive to Paige's house, where he runs down and kills her husband. Chick's life begins to spiral homicidally out of control, resulting in the destruction of everything he holds dear. Will Paige learn the truth about Chick before it's too late? Fast paced, filled with wry humor, murder, lust, and dead-on L.A. characterizations, Cannell has written his most explosive novel yet.
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. Shane's frantic investigation into his wife's disappearance soon takes him inside a bitter and violent feud between two rival hip-hop record companies. At the center of this war is one of the most lethal adversaries he's ever encountered: Stacy Maluga, a trashy, beautiful Lady Macbeth-like white woman raised in Compton, married to a multi-millionaire rap mogul and known in the gangsta hip-hop world as the White Sister. Shane is no stranger to big trouble, but this time he's met his match in a powerful and media-savvy enemy who could put him in jail, order a hit on him, or utterly destroy his reputation. Worse, Shane fears that his wife may be dead and that the White Sister is behind it.
Driving along the freeway, LAPD Sergeant Shane Scully glances over and sees at the wheel of a neighboring car his oldest friend and LAPD colleague, Jody Dean. Why is Scully so surprised? Because it's been two years since Jody committed suicide. Now Shane is confronted by the bizarre truth: Jody and five other cops thought to be dead are anything but. Originally sent deep undercover to bust an extremely violent international criminal network, they've gone bad. Calling themselves the Vikings, they are LAPD's worst nightmare: dangerous rogue cops who know how the system works. Full of the high-wire suspense and wonderful characters that made The Tin Collectors a bestseller, The Viking Funeral brings Shane Scully back into action, pitting him against his closest childhood friend, and endangering the life of the woman he loves.
L.A. police detective Shane Scully comes under investigation by Internal Affairs (derisively known as "the tin collectors") after he kills his ex-partner who was one of the mayor's bodyguards. Temporarily reassigned, so that he can remain under the department's watchful eye, Scully finds that more than his badge is at stake when he is set up to take the rap in a deadly plot of corruption and conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of the LAPD.
Cannell delivers non-stop action and intrigue in the latest installment of his New York Times bestselling Shane Scully series 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. A bullet pulled from the victim's skull produces what police call a "cold hit," an unexpected ballistics match linking one unsolved case to another, and the previous victim was an LA Police officer, killed ten years earlier. After heavy-handed FBI agents throw him off the Fingertip Killer case, Scully teams up with his wife and boss, Alexa, and a pair of tough cops from the LAPD's anti-terrorism squad. Outside the law and deep undercover, they fight to see justice done for the slain officer, and, possibly, to unravel a murderous plot with connections high up in the Homeland Security office.
The Edgar and Emmy Award-winning writer and producer delivers a high-concept thriller of inter-bureau conspiracy and betrayal A nightmarish series of events sweeps LAPD's Sergeant Shane Scully and his wife (and boss), Alexa, into the vortex of an enormous, jurisdictional firestorm. First, a sheriff's deputy, a friend of Shane's, is gunned down while serving a routine search warrant. His fellow deputies blame the incident on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, whom they angrily accuse of failing to warn them that the suspect had a huge arsenal of illegal weapons in his house. Soon thereafter, a member of the ATF Situation Response Team is shot to death, followed by the sniper murder of a member of the Sheriff's Special Enforcement Bureau. At the request of the Mayor, the LAPD-an uninvolved and unbiased agency-assigns Shane to investigate. He is given an impossible deadline to find a solution before these two elite and deadly SWAT Teams kill each other off amid a hurricane of horrible publicity. Stephen Cannell is one of television's most prolific and recognized producers. His Shane Scully series has been gaining a growing audience since the publication of The Tin Collectors, and Vertical Coffin is his best outing yet.
