Matt Sinclair

When a teenager from a wealthy suburb outside of Oakland, CA is dumped at an inner city bus stop, homicide detective Matt Sinclair catches the case. It's his first since being bumped to desk duty for a bust that went south... fast. With few leads and plenty of attention, it's the worst kind of case to help him get back up to speed. And it only gets worse as the bodies start to pile up-first at the same bus bench, then around the city. Sinclair is unable to link the victims to each other, and the killer is just getting started. Time is running out on Sinclair's career, not to mention the people closest to him. With Red Line, Brian Thiem, a veteran of the Oakland police department and the Iraq war, has written a nuanced police procedural filled with the kind of insight that could only be written by a detective who has walked the streets and lived the life.

Cops in Oakland seldom meet people whose lives are going well. That's certainly the case when homicide sergeant Matt Sinclair recognizes the dead woman hanging from a tree as a teenage runaway named Dawn he arrested ten years before. And as Sinclair and his partner, Cathy Braddock, soon learn, many of Dawn's clients, not to mention the local and federal officials who protect them, will go to any length to keep the police from digging too deep into her past. Then the killer goes public, and Sinclair and Braddock must race to uncover the secrets Dawn was killed to protect before the killer unleashes a major attack on a scale the city has never seen before. With Thrill Kill, Brian Thiem, a veteran of the Oakland Police Department and the Iraq war, has penned a nuanced police procedural that could only be written by a trained detective with years of hard-earned experience.

When the Oakland coroner's office uncovers a body buried in a shallow grave in the outskirts of the city, homicide sergeant Matt Sinclair expects to find a drug dealer caught in the crosshairs of a turf war. Instead, the victim is identified as Phil Roberts, the commander of the police department's intelligence unit and Sinclair's former partner. Police brass want to pin the murder on a dead member of an outlaw motorcycle gang and they want the case closed quickly, but Sinclair and his current partner, Cathy Braddock, aren't satisfied with that answer. As Sinclair delves into the details of Roberts's past, secrets from his work and personal life come to the surface-secrets that some people will go to any length to keep buried. But Sinclair won't stop until he finds the truth, even if it means sacrificing his former partner's reputation and possibly his own career. With Shallow Grave, Brian Thiem brings back his beloved detective for a thrilling third adventure in his acclaimed police procedural series.