Ike Schwartz Mystery

The past has always felt near in the historic house of Jonathon Lydell III, who proudly advertises his family connection to the Virginia Lees. But now, history is repeating itself in a truly bizarre and spooky way. One hundred and fifty years ago, a guest staying in the Lydell family house was murdered in the “stranger room,” a guest room cutoff from the main house. The windowless room's single door was closed and locked from the inside. The murder, never solved, fell into the background of the Civil War. But the town is shocked and mystified when, a century and a half later, another guest is murdered in the same stranger room, with the door again locked from the inside. Sheriff Ike Schwartz and FBI agent Karl Hedrick are dispatched to resolve the mystery of the strangely identical murders, but they meet with obstacles and resistance at every turn.

On the night of the Fourth of July, Nick Reynolds, his pilot's rating barely a month old, disappears off the radar over the Chesapeake Bay. Investigating agencies call it a pilot-error accident, but no trace of the plane is ever found in the Bay's murky waters. Ike Schwartz, former spook and erstwhile sheriff of Picketsville, has his vacation interrupted when an old CIA buddy asks him to look into the disappearance. What looks like a simple missing person case soon catapults Ike into an international thriller with intimations of terrorism that might threaten the nation and its leaders.

Ike Schwartz is the sheriff of Picketsville, a small town not far from Washington, D.C. A former CIA agent, Ike remains connected to the Agency through a friend who sometimes still involves him in cases on the side. Ike is also courting Ruth, the fiercely independent president of the town's new university. All this is usually enough to bring some interesting conflicts Ike's way. A new one arises when a body is found in Picketsville's urgent-care clinic, a body sitting in a chair but dead for hours. Perhaps not coincidentally, there is also a break-in at the house of a new university faculty member whose expertise lies in icons. Can a specific icon called the Virgin of Tenderness be the spark to these crimes? Ike figures that any spycraft contained in the picture would be decades old. Or would it?

Ruth Harris, Sheriff Ike Schwartz's fiancée, is involved in a near-fatal automobile accident. But Ike is convinced the crash was rigged. Even though he is embroiled in a close election, has no jurisdiction over the investigation, and can find no support in the usual law enforcement community, he places himself on leave and goes rogue to investigate and seek the person or persons responsible for putting Ruth in a coma. His efforts attract help from unexpected and irregular sources. Old friends in the covert community step up, and his loyal staff in Picketsville provide undercover assistance. The journey leads him to state's rights organizations and then to several zealots and dissident academics before it finally ends at home in Picketsville. A Poisoned Pen Press Mystery

Ike Schwartz, sheriff of Picketsville, Virginia, and his fiancée, Ruth Harris, president of a local university, survived a trying year of academic and local politics and now seek some peace and quiet on Scone Island, a rocky piece of land four miles off the coast of Maine. Its lack of electricity, a reliable water supply, and phone service guarantees their peaceful seclusion. The fact that there has been a suspicious accident resulting in the death of the mysterious Harmon Staley need not concern them at all. And it doesn't—until Ike's past as a CIA agent rolls in on him like the area's famous twelve-foot tides. Two more murders involving former colleagues elsewhere in the country have Ike's old friend from the agency, Charlie Garland, searching the files for a connection. However, stonewalling by the CIA, as well as conspiracies, real and imagined, mean that Ike and Ruth are alone on the island and facing an unknown number of determined assassins. To complicate matters, Ruth's mother decides to drop in on them just as the excitement begins. Late arrivals by the director of the CIA and Charlie Garland only make matters worse. Meanwhile, Ruth daydreams of Plan B—Las Vegas—in hopes that she and Ike will finally be able to get away from it all while lost in the crowds.

Marry new technology to old-fashioned policing, and you've got something special. The car is found just outside Picketsville, Virginia, a smoking ruin of twisted metal and shattered glass. It takes only a glance to confirm that this is Ike Schwartz's car. Ever since he left the CIA, the incorruptible Picketsville sheriff has made enemies at home and abroad. Now one has caught up with him with a bomb powerful enough to turn quiet Main Street into a smoking crater. Is this a cop killing-or domestic terrorism? The town plunges into mourning, and Ike's wife Ruth, the president of the local college, puts on a brave face as the sheriff's department organizes a manhunt, the likes of which Picketsville has never seen. Back at the CIA, Ike's old colleague Charlie Garland joins the hunt, becoming fixated on a blurry videotape of the crime scene. Charlie's elastic job description includes monitoring Ike's life. Investigations-led by more than one player-fan around and out of Picketsville as far as a small town in Idaho where Martin Pangborn, head of the radical militia called the Fifty-First Star, runs his organization. If some banks and businesses are too big to fail, are some people too deeply connected or too wealthy to bring to justice? Is Martin Pangborn such a person? The Fifty-First Star's tentacles run long and deep. But the Vulture is something no one, not even Martin Pangborn, is prepared for. |Foreword12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243