Publisher's WeeklyWilcox's latest California thriller marks the debut of actor-playwright Alan Bernhardt of San Francisco as a freelance private eye. A rehearsaland his flirtation with new cast member Pamela Brettis interrupted by a message from Hubert Dancer, head of the detective agency that gives the actor outside jobs. Accepting a supposedly brief assignment, Bernhardt leaves town to trace Betty Fields, missing from her post as art consultant to a corporation of venture capitalists. The firm has hired Dancer's agency to find Betty and her lover, Nick Ames, but after doing so and reporting back to Dancer, Bernhardt is outraged to hear that Ames has been stalked and murdered. He breaks with Dancer, going off on his own to find the fugitive again before she also is ''neutralized.'' Betty knows that her life is endangered by the real power behind her corporate employer, reclusive, amoral billionaire Daniel DuBois, who is determined to prevent her from exposing his guilty secrets. When Bernhardt catches up with Betty a second time, the professional killer makes a move that creates the story's stunning climax. This is a remarkably well-handled mystery with strong characters. Readers will want more tales of the thespian and Pamela, his new romantic lead.

Stalked by a nighttime killer, a woman does whatever it takes to surviveHe calls himself Tarot. His first victim was a mother, killed while her daughter slept in the next room. His second was a truck-stop waitress, murdered—like the first woman—while she slept. After each one, he sent letters to the newspapers, boasting of his crimes and promising more to come. The third victim will die soon, he tells them. But first, she must be warned.Joanna is drinking her morning coffee when she finds the switchblade on the floor, dropped through her newspaper slot in the middle of the night. Was it left there by a neighborhood prankster with a dark sense of humor? Or is this the warning of Tarot? Her husband has left her, making Joanna the sole caretaker for their son. Until Tarot is caught, neither of them can count on a good night’s sleep.

A mob boss is dead, and his widow wants Drake to help him rest in peaceDominic Vennezio is found on the floor of his beachside love nest, murdered on a Sunday night. It looks like an ordinary mob hit, part of a routine power struggle with the East Coast Outfit, but Vennezio’s widow has other suspicions. Her marriage to the kingpin had been strained ever since he began taking his secretary for weekends at the beach house, but even now, she feels a devotion to him. She wants justice for her husband—not just legal, but cosmic—and for cosmic justice, San Francisco can offer no better sleuth than Stephen Drake.A crime reporter with a clairvoyant streak, Drake’s apprehensions about working for the mob are overcome by his sympathy for the noble widow. He starts his investigation in Los Angeles, talking to Vennezio’s replacement, and sees immediately that it doesn’t take a psychic to figure out that this job could be deadly.Review“Collin Wilcox gets better and better.” —Tony Hillerman“One of the three best mystery writers in America, his stories and characters as real as a clenched fist.” —Jack Finney, author of Time and Again“[An] old pro.” —Kirkus ReviewsAbout the AuthorCollin Wilcox (1924–1996) was an American author of mystery fiction. Born in Detroit, he set most of his work in San Francisco, beginning with 1967’s The Black Door—a noir thriller starring a crime reporter with extrasensory perception. Under the pen name Carter Wick, he published several standalone mysteries including The Faceless Man (1975) and Dark House, Dark Road (1982), but he found his greatest success under his own name, with the celebrated Frank Hastings series.Hastings, a football player turned San Francisco homicide detective, made his debut in The Lonely Hunter (1969), and Wilcox continued to follow him for the rest of his career, publishing nearly two dozen novels in the series, which concludes with Calculated Risk (1995). Wilcox’s other best-known series stars Alan Bernhardt, a theatrical director with a habit of getting involved in behind-the-scenes mysteries. Bernhardt appeared in four more books after his introduction in 1988’s Bernhardt’s Edge.

To unlock the secrets of a homicide, Bernhardt must connect with a terrified childDennis tells the police he was sleeping when his wife was killed. Connie stumbled upon a prowler, he says, and paid for the mistake with her life. The police believe his story, but this cold man’s crocodile tears cannot convince Connie’s sister, Janice. She suspects her brother-in-law of a heinous crime, and it will take an unusual investigator to prove her right.Alan Bernhardt is a theater director in San Francisco who pays his rent with the odd bit of private detective work. Searching for the man who strangled Connie, his biggest obstacle isn’t Dennis, but John—the dead woman’s seven-year-old son. He may have witnessed something crucial on the night of the murder, but this sensitive child is too frightened to speak. Coaxing words out of John will be the toughest assignment of Alan’s directing career, but not half as hard as keeping the boy alive.The second novel of Alan Bernhardt, playwright, director, and moonlighting Bay Area gumshoe--by the author of the Lt. Frank Hastings police procedurals. Bernhardt will need every ounce of his stagecraft and street-smarts to get the truth out of a scared seven-year-old boy. "Wilcox gets better and better!"--Tony Hillerman.