Carter Ross Mystery

Shamus and Nero award-winning author Brad Parks takes readers back to the beginning of investigative reporter Carter Ross's career with this intriguing prequel short story. Only 24 years old and still a wide-eyed reporter for a tiny backwater newspaper, Ross is getting his crack at the big leagues with an interview at New Jersey's largest paper, The Eagle-Examiner. If-that is-he nails the interview and the on-the-spot writing test. Ross has never had a problem spinning a story, but provided with notes he didn't take and quotes he didn't hear it feels flat, and he's not so sure about his chances. So when a car crashes into a building in a nearby town and Carter overhears the assignments editor complaining that there's no one left in the building whom she can send out to cover the story, Carter jumps at the chance and quickly finds himself dangerously close to being in over his head in "The Nightgown," another stellar addition to Brad Parks's acclaimed mystery series.

Faces of the Gone by Brad Parks won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel and the Nero Award for Best American Mystery--it is the first book to receive both awards. The book was named to lists of the year's best mystery debuts by the Chicago Sun-Times and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Four bodies, each with a single bullet wound in the back of the head, stacked like cordwood in a weed-choked vacant lot: That's the front-page news facing Carter Ross, investigative reporter with the Newark Eagle-Examiner. Immediately dispatched to the scene, Carter learns that the four victims-an exotic dancer, a drug dealer, a hustler, and a mama's boy-came from different parts of the city and didn't seem to know one another. The police, eager to calm jittery residents, leak a theory that the murders are revenge for a bar stickup, and Carter's paper, hungry for a scoop, hastily prints it. Carter doesn't come from the streets, but he understands a thing or two about Newark's neighborhoods. And he knows there are no quick answers when dealing with a crime like this. Determined to uncover the true story, he enlists the aide of Tina Thompson, the paper's smoking-hot city editor, to run interference at the office; Tommy Hernandez, the paper's gay Cuban intern, to help him with legwork on the streets; and Tynesha Dales, a local stripper, to take him to Newark's underside. It turns out that the four victims have one connection after all, and this knowledge will put Carter on the path of one very ambitious killer.

In The Good Cop, Brad Parks is back with all the humor, charm, and human insight his readers have come to expect, and more. As long as Newark Eagle-Examiner reporter Carter Ross turns in his stories on deadline, no one bats an eye if he doesn't wander into the newsroom until 10 or 11 in the morning. So it's an unpleasant surprise when he's awakened at 8:38 a.m. by a phone call from his boss, telling him a local policeman was killed and to get the story. Shaking himself awake, Carter heads off to interview the cop's widow. And then he gets another call: the story's off, the cop committed suicide. But Carter can't understand why a man with a job he loved, a beautiful wife, and plans to take his adorable children to Disney World would suddenly kill himself. And when Carter's attempts to learn more are repeatedly blocked, it's clear someone knows more than he's saying about the cop's death. The question is, who? And what does he have to hide? Carter, with his usual single-minded devotion to a good story-and to the memory of a Newark policeman-will do whatever it takes to uncover the truth.

Carter Ross, the sometimes-dashing investigative reporter for the Newark Eagle-Examiner, is back, and reporting on the latest tragedy to befall Newark, New Jersey, a fast-moving house fire that kills two boys. With the help of the paper's newest intern, a bubbly blonde known as "Sweet Thang," Carter finds the victims' mother, Akilah Harris, who spins a tale of woe about a mortgage rate reset that forced her to work two jobs and leave her young boys without child care. Carter turns in a front-page feature, but soon discovers Akilah isn't what she seems. And neither is the fire. When Newark councilman Windy Byers is reported missing, it launches Carter into the sordid world of urban house-flipping and Jersey-style political corruption. With his usual mix of humor, compassion, and street smarts, Carter is soon calling on some of his friends-gay Cuban sidekick Tommy Hernandez, T-shirt-selling buddy Tee Jamison, and on-and-off girlfriend Tina Thompson-for help in tracking down the shadowy figure behind it all. Brad Parks's debut, Faces of the Gone, won the Shamus Award and Nero Award for Best American Mystery. Now Parks solidifies his place as one of the brightest new talents in crime fiction with this authentic, entertaining thriller, Eyes of the Innocent.

Brad Parks's smart-mouthed, quick-witted reporter returns in The Girl Next Door-another action-packed entry in his award-winning series, written with an unforgettable mix of humor and suspense. Reading his own newspaper's obituaries, veteran reporter Carter Ross comes across that of a woman named Nancy Marino, who was the victim of a hit-and-run while she was on the job delivering copies of that very paper, the Eagle-Examiner. Struck by the opportunity to write a heroic piece about an everyday woman killed too young, he heads to her wake to gather tributes and anecdotes. It's the last place Ross expects to find controversy-which is exactly what happens when one of Nancy's sisters convinces him that the accident might not have been accidental at all. It turns out that the kind and generous Nancy may have made a few enemies, starting with her boss at the diner where she was a part-time waitress, and even including the publisher of the Eagle-Examiner. Carter's investigation of this seemingly simple story soon has him in big trouble with his full-time editor and sometime girlfriend, Tina Thompson, not to mention the rest of his bosses at the paper, but he can't let it go-the story is just too good, and it keeps getting better. But will his nose for trouble finally take him too far?

When he hears residents of a Newark neighborhood are getting sick-and even dying-from a strange disease, investigative reporter Carter Ross dives into the story-so deep he comes down with the illness himself. With even more motivation to track down the source of the disease, Carter soon hits upon a nearby construction site. But when the project's developer is found dead, and his mob ties surface, Carter knows he's looking at a story much bigger-and with even more dangerous consequences-than an environmental hazard. Back in the newsroom, Carter has his hands full with his current girlfriend and with the paper's newest eager intern, not to mention his boss and former girlfriend Tina Thompson, who has some news for Carter that's about to make tangling with the mob seem simple by comparison, in The Player by Brad Parks.