Stanley Hastings

The latest in the beloved Stanley Hastings series-the unlikeliest private eye in New York City, who doesn't even carry a gun. Poor Stanley Hastings. After getting hired by a hitman and nearly getting shot, the put-upon PI needed some fun, so when a gorgeous damsel in distress walks through his office door, she seems just what the doctor ordered. Wrong again. The fair maiden turns out to be a married mom who wants Stanley to find out why her teenage daughter is skipping school. Playing truant officer isn't exactly Stanley's idea of fun, but at least it should be easy. Fat chance. Stanley being Stanley, nothing goes right, nothing is as it seems, bodies start to pile up, and faster than you can say "fall guy," guess who's left holding the bag?

The new crime thriller in the ever-funny and charming Stanley Hastings mystery series, featuring the only detective in New York City who doesn't carry a gun. Stanley Hastings finally felt like a real PI, staking out a New Jersey motel to get evidence on a woman's cheating husband. It should have been a piece of cake. Only the husband wasn't cheating, someone killed him, and the cops are trying to pin the murder on the man apprehended at the scene, who just happens to be Stanley. To clear his name, Stanley will wind up jumping bail, impersonating a police officer, staking out a mob boss, and appropriating a murder weapon from a sassy Jersey Girl who keeps trying to distract him by ripping her clothes off. And that's just for starters . . .

Stanley Hastings on safari? I don't think so. Neither did Stanley, until Alice's small inheritance-coupled with scrimping on a few luxuries like food and rent-allowed them to book a group trip to Zambia. Now the New York PI is hiking with lions, canoeing with hippos, and having close encounters with elephants and giraffes. It's a dangerous safari. The leader is a reckless, gun-ho, great white hunter who delights in leaping from the jeep with a hearty, "Come on, gang, let's see where this lion is going!" And a series of bizarre accidents quickly dwindles the group's numbers. Why was the guide's young spotter foolish enough to walk under a sausage fruit tree.. just as one on the huge sausage fruits fell? How did the leaves of a poisonous plant wind up in a tourist's salad? Are these really accidents? A stabbing tips the scale. It's murder, and the only policeman in a hundred miles is a park ranger (whose only murder case was that of an ivory poacher shot dead in plain sight). It's up to Stanley to crack the case.. if he can just avoid being eaten by a lion.

A sensational murder trial! A young woman found naked and stabbed to death in her apartment! The woman was the girlfriend of his boss, Richard Rosenberg, and the hotshot lawyer is charged with killing her. Now Richard's in court fighting for his life, and Stanley's out on the firing line trying to dig up some evidence in his favor. It won't be easy. The murdered woman was a law clerk for a prominent judge, and everyone Stanley needs to question is currently tied up in a high-profile Global Banking trial. As Stanley races back and forth between two courtrooms, searching for the key to the mystery through investigative techniques that could easily get him charged as an accessory, every fact tends to point to Richard's guilt: DNA evidence proves he is the man who had sex with the victim just before she died, eyewitnesses put him at the scene of the crime, and his fingerprints are on the murder weapon. In desperation, Richard resorts to a series of courtroom tactics so outrageous they would make Perry Mason blush. Before the case is over, everyone in the courtroom will be convinced that not only does Richard Rosenberg have a fool for a client, but the client has a fool for a lawyer.