Janek Mysteries

"He spent hours drawing sketches of how she might be killed. And the more work he put into them the more exciting the idea became. And then he started following her and then he was caught up. And the more caught up he was the more definitely she was doomed, for once an idea took hold in him he felt compelled to carry it out. It was the Switch that made his crime a work of art... "At first the two killings seem unrelated. The lonely call girl murdered on New York City's West Side had never met the prim schoolteacher slain across town in the far safer preserve of the city's Upper East Side. But someone has decapitated them both and switched their heads: a deed that is apparently its own motive, a crime as pointless as it was perfectly executed.Detective Frank Janek immediately knows that he has entered the realm of a lethal madness. Middle-aged, divorced, a man centered solely on his work, Janek is practiced in piercing the minds of the criminals he pursues. In the absence of clues from the killer, he has only the awful symmetry of the crime to work with, only his own finely honed intuition. "This was a crime conceived in the shadows," he thinks, "There was precision in it, and passion. Concentrated rage and a love of order. A need to beautify. Even some strange, unfathomable, as yet uncatalogued species of love."The challengeto become as precise, as creative, as cold as his prey-begins to take its toll. The tenuous psychological thread leads Janek back into the unsettled pastnot only the killer's but his own. His own passion and rage and unresolved love. The love he bore for the man who trained him-a retired cop whose apparent suicide he has shied from investigating too closely, the passion for justice that has made him a marked man within the police fraternity. The rage he feels at ancient crimes that have finally burst into full and terrifying flower. And most of all, the new love he feels for the mysterious woman in whom all these strands of the past seem to converge. It is Janek's love for Caroline that leads him at last to a blinding vision of the purpose behind the grisly double homicide.Too late, he realizes that the case of "Switched Heads" may only be the bait....Praise for Switch:I am very impressed. Switch is superior in characterization, movement, tension, the quality of the writing and the a mind of the writer. William Bayer goes right on my "look for list" John D. MacDonald"The crime is dazzling, the action fast paced, and there are good insights into police techniques and the police mind." Robert Daley"Switch is a novel in which the grit and madness of New York are palpable. As well as engrossing the reader utterly, it does high honor to the grand tradition of the American psychological thriller, and despite the riveting nature of its central act of horror, it also traces an exhilarating love affair between two bloodied but triumphantly humane survivors of the city's attrition." Thomas Keneally"Switch has the stunning intensity of The First Deadly Sin, and I can't think of a higher compliment." Mary Higgins Clark

New York Police Lieutenant Frank Janek, hero of William Bayer's million-copy bestseller Switch, returns to solve his strongest, most obsessive, most dangerous case- Wallflower.Riveting psychological suspense, psychosexual intrigue and terror, a labyrinthine journey into a murderer's twisted, tormented past-all the hallmarks of William Bayer's extraordinary crime fiction are here. But with a new dimension. This time the case is personal. This time Janek is out for blood.Bored by the mundane cases that have taken up his time and overwhelmed by the fame that has come to him with his solution to Switch, Janek has gone to Venice to reconsider his life. There he meets brilliant, beautiful, compassionate Monika. He falls in love. It seems like a dream.Then comes the call from New York. His beloved goddaughter, Jess, has been viciously murdered in Riverside Park, her body savagely mutilated. Heartbroken and horrified, Janek immediately returns home to discover that Jess was but one of a number of apparently randomly chosen victims. The only things linking them are the some grisly modus operandi and the same strange signature of the killer-a dead weed placed at the scene of each crime.As Janek delves Into Jess's past, he discovers more than he wants to know-strange rituals, bizarre sex games, odd fascinations. But how are these components of her life connected to her murder? After each revelation comes a new, more puzzling layer of mystery.As Janek gets deeper into the psychology of the case, it becomes more and more an investigation into himself. The closer he comes to understanding the madness behind the crimes, the closer he touches a madness within, a madness that can be cured only by defeating his most formidable opponent, by vanquishing what he comes to recognize as true evil.PRAISE FOR WALLFLOWER:Wallflower (renamed "The Forget-Me-Not Murders") was a CBS TV movie-of-the-week, starring Richard Crenna and Tyne Daly."A book with depth...Bayer has built a fine story..." -London Times"Elegantly written and psychologically profound." -Glasgow Herald"The plot in Wallflower is complex and comes together well. Bayer can paint some great characters, people who are world-weary, tough, but with hearts of gold." -Irish press"Cleverly crafted and brilliantly plotted. Bayer's best work to date. Wallflower is a top shelf thriller." -New York Daily News"An impossible-to-put-down thriller." -Cleveland Plain Dealer"Brilliant: this is Bayer's most suspenseful and resonant..." -Kirkus Reviews"A powerful psychological drama that equals the impact of the best-selling Switch." -Copley News

A secret hall of mirrors, a labyrinth of fear; Janek returns in a hypnotic thriller...Nobody writes better psychological thrillers than William Bayer. And no character in contemporary crime fiction is as compelling or complex as Lieutenant Frank Janek of the N.Y.P.D. Now Bayer and Janek are back-in a brilliant novel of terror and excitement.A beautiful young woman meets her latest "pickup" in a Manhattan hotel bar and goes back with him to his room, where she drugs him, robs him, and humiliates him. Several hours later, the "mark" is found dead, the mysterious young woman is wanted for the murder, and Janek and his team of detectives are assigned to the case. Simultaneously, Janek becomes involved in the reopening of a grisly society-murder investigation that has plagued Internal Affairs for nine years. As he sets out to solve both puzzles, the present and past eerily dovetail, culminating with a deadly battle in a secret mirror maze hidden beneath a "ghost" amusement park.Mirror Maze sinuously leads the reader through one maze after another- literal, theoretical, and psychological. As with the other best-selling Janek novels, Switch and Wallflower, Mirror Maze is a superb police procedural, tense and violent, as well as a thoughtful examination of the blurring of illusion and reality, guilt and innocence.FIND MORE OF William Bayer'S BOOKS IN DIGITAL FROM CROSSROAD PRESS, including the first two Janek Detective novels, Switch and Wallflower, his novels Blindside, and Visions of Isabelle, and his lavish, richly detailed foreign detective series including the novels Tangier and Pattern Crimes.Crossroad Press is happy to present mysteries from a number of prolific and talented authors, including Bill Crider, Bill Pronzini, John Lutz, Tom Piccirilli, Ed Lynskey, Al Sarrantonio, Edward Gorman and more. Search these authors by name, or simply search CROSSROAD PRESS for a list of titles.The French edition of Mirror Maze won the prestigious "Le Grand Prix Calibre 38."PRAISE FOR MIRROR MAZE:WALL STREET JOURNAL: "Mr. Bayer's fictional maze is filled with surprising turns and intentionally frustrating dead ends. Discovered within it are straight and crooked cops, devious and above board attorneys, caring psychiatrists, cold-blooded predators and a surprisingly sympathetic victimizer. Janek himself proves to be excellent company: a likeable and believable hero, more than a match for the monsters he eventually finds."LIBRARY JOURNAL: "An outstanding novel."PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: "A very tangled web of kinkiness, greed, police corruption and betrayal."KIRKUS REVIEWS: "A powerhouse procedural...another dazzling high-wire act from Bayer!"JOE GORES: "Stunning in its controlled wildness, its beauty, and its understanding of obsession as tragedy...a superb meditation upon the human condition, and one of the most compelling novels of the year."ROSS THOMAS: "A plot more cunning than any maze. A splendid treat."MOSTLY MURDER: "Suspense is Bayer's forte...the reader is constantly surprised by the twists and turns, the dead ends and optical illusions. You can't wait to find out how it comes out."