Nils Shapiro

Set in Minnesota, Gone to Dust is the debut private-eye murder mystery from Emmy Award-winning Seinfeld writer Matt Goldman. A brutal crime. The ultimate cover-up. How do you solve a murder with no useable evidence? Private detective Nils Shapiro is focused on forgetting his ex-wife and keeping warm during another Minneapolis winter when a former colleague, neighboring Edina Police Detective Anders Ellegaard, calls with the impossible. Suburban divorcee Maggie Somerville was found murdered in her bedroom, her body covered with the dust from hundreds of emptied vacuum cleaner bags, all potential DNA evidence obscured by the calculating killer. Digging into Maggie's cell-phone records, Nils finds that the most frequently called number belongs to a mysterious young woman whose true identity could shatter the Somerville family-but could she be guilty of murder? After the FBI demands that Nils drop the case, Nils and Ellegaard are forced to take their investigation underground, where the case grows as murky as the contents of the vacuum cleaner bags. Is this a strange case of domestic violence or something with far-reaching, sinister implications?

New York Times bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning writer Matt Goldman obliges by bringing the Minneapolis private detective back for another thrilling, standalone adventure in The Shallows. A prominent lawyer is found dead, tied to his own dock by a fishing stringer through his jaw, and everyone wants private detective Nils Shapiro to protect them from suspicion: The unfaithful widow. Her artist boyfriend. The lawyer's firm. A polarizing congressional candidate. A rudderless suburban police department. Even the FBI. Nils and his investigative partners illuminate a sticky web of secrets and deceit that draws national attention. But finding the web doesn't prevent Nils from getting caught in it. Just when his safety is most in peril, his personal life takes an unexpected twist, facing its own snarl of surprise and deception. In The Shallows, Goldman delves into the threat of dark history repeating itself while delivering his signature pace, humor, and richly drawn characters.

In the words of Lee Child on Gone to Dust, "I want more of Nils Shapiro." New York Times bestselling and Emmy Award—winning author Matt Goldman happily obliges by bringing the Minneapolis private detective back for another thrilling, standalone adventure in Dead West. Nils Shapiro accepts what appears to be an easy, lucrative job: find out if Beverly Mayer's grandson is foolishly throwing away his trust fund in Hollywood, especially now, in the wake of his fiancée's tragic death. However, that easy job becomes much more complicated once Nils arrives in Los Angeles, a disorienting place where the sunshine hides dark secrets. Nils quickly suspects that Ebben Mayer's fiancée was murdered, and that Ebben himself may have been the target. As Nils moves into Ebben's inner circle, he discovers that everyone in Ebben's professional life—his agent, manager, a screenwriter, a producer—seem to have dubious motives at best. With Nil's friend Jameson White, who has come to Los Angeles to deal with demons of his own, acting as Ebben's bodyguard, Nils sets out to find a killer before it's too late.