Max Blake Mysteries

A detective hunts for a missing archbishop in Northern Ireland who may a victim of violence-or an instigator of it ... Oregon detective and former muckraking journalist Max Blake's discovery of a long-dreaded postcard from Ireland in his mailbox is the catalyst that touches off a cross-continent search for his fiancée's favorite uncle. The Rev. Sean "Jack" O'Lennox, the archbishop of St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Cathedral in Armagh, Northern Ireland, is missing, and the postcard-a pre-arranged signal-is his apparent cry for help. Max is prepared to do everything in his considerable power to help Caeli Brown, his longtime partner in the Blake & Brown Detective Agency and soon-to-be wife. But she slips off to Ireland without him, and he is left with a double quandary: finding Caeli, and then determining the fate of the archbishop, a complicated man who believes that British-held Ulster should be returned to the Irish Republic by any means necessary ...

In the thrilling follow-up to Emerald Ridge, a PI and his fiancée head from Oregon to Rome-to find answers to mysteries both personal and political ... Max Blake's fiancée, Caeli Brown, lost her archbishop uncle to gunfire-at least, that's what they thought. So they're puzzled when they receive another postcard from him. What's going on? Is Uncle Jack dead or not? Max and Caeli are soon on the road to the Vatican's Secret Archives Building in the heart of Rome, where they meet a mysterious prelate with a fixation for world domination-a man who may well hold the key to determining who actually shot American President John F. Kennedy in 1963-in this gut-wrenching, surprising, and sharply witty tale of international mystery and intrigue.

A professor and private detective is called in by an Oregon lawman for help with a high-profile murder. A mild-mannered college professor is an unlikely candidate to hunt down the killer of the town's richest man and his movie star paramour. But because of a chance encounter years before, Max Blake, a former newspaper reporter-turned-professor and part-time private detective, is called in, and forced to form unusual and sometimes dodgy alliances, as he investigates the vicious killings with the city's police chief. To make things worse, there's a complicated history between Max and the chief-and the leading suspects are members of the city's police force. The trail winds through the incredible mansion called Raptor's Ridge and the streets and alleyways of Oregon's state capital, and eventually spills into the beautiful but deadly High Desert near the town of John Day. When the killer is eventually cornered and violence explodes in unexpected ways, Max must use all of his wits and daring, plus a little bit of luck, to remain alive during a deadly night of terror. And eventual reckoning.

An American detective in Ireland becomes entangled in international intrigue: "Excellent" (Peter Eichstaedt, award winning author of Borderland). Hard-boiled private detective and former muckraking journalist Max Blake, along with his fearless fiancée Caeli Brown, are back in action in their newly adopted Irish homeland. A favor to a new friend who works with the Irish police brings them out of retirement to solve a series of thefts at Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, which cater to the tourist crowd. But their first encounter with the thief is merely a dangerous springboard for what's truly going on in their little patch of the Emerald Isle. Before long, they're being followed, accosted, threatened, and then shot at when a mysterious woman shakes loose from her shopping cart and produces a 9mm pistol-all to keep a global plot under wraps while the countdown to true mayhem begins. Tick tick tick ...