R. C. Bray

"Homicide Detective Max Rupert never fully accepted his wife's death, even when he believed that a reckless hit and run driver was the cause. But when he learns that in fact she was murdered, he devotes himself to hunting down her killers. Most of his life he had thought of himself as a decent man. But now he's so consumed with thoughts of retribution that he questions whether he will take that last step and enact the vengeance he longs for. On a...

The murderer of Adam Diehl, a reclusive rare-book collector, begins to stalk Adam's sister's lover Will -- a convicted literary forger -- under the guise of letters from long-dead authors, and soon Will realizes that this killer threatens everything he holds dear. "The rare book world is stunned when a reclusive collector, Adam Diehl, is found on the floor of his Montauk home: hands severed, surrounded by valuable inscribed books and original manuscripts...

"In the southernmost Los Angeles district of San Pedro, one of the world's busiest harbors, an unlikely pair of lovers are unwittingly caught between the two warring sides of the law amid the investigation of a horrifying human-trafficking ring. When Dinko Babich, a young longshoreman, delivers Lita Medina, a young Mexican dancer, from the harbor to a Hollywood nightclub, theirs lives are forever changed as the two are caught in the crosshairs of...

Leo Maxwell always lived in the shadow of his older brother Teddy, one of San Francisco's most ruthless and effective criminal defense lawyers. Then a gunman shot Teddy in the head. Although Teddy survived the shooting, he has been left disabled and dependent on Leo, now a criminal defense attorney practicing in Oakland. The Maxwell brothers are living together in Oakland while Leo, chafing in his role as junior attorney in his former sister-in-law's...

When the world's foremost Templar historian commits suicide, leaving behind a clue about a secret hidden object in the famous chapel of Rosslyn, anthropologist Jess Silverton researches an ancient civilization linked to the foundations of Judaism and Buddhism.

Richie Forman is fresh out of prison. By night, he makes a living impersonating Frank Sinatra in San Francisco's lounges and corporate parties. But then his ex-best friend-- the man who stole his fiancée while he was in prison-- is found hacked to death in his garage, and Richie is the prime suspect.

Faced with evidence of stunning prosecutorial misconduct, a San Francisco judge has ordered a new trial for the Maxwell brothers' father, Lawrence, who was convicted of killing their mother twenty-one years before. A prison snitch soon turns up dead, with Lawrence the only suspect, and Leo teams up with hotshot attorney Nina Schuyler to defend Lawrence against murder charges both old and new. Working the streets while Nina handles the action in the...

Taking a job as a public defender in San Francisco, Leo Maxwell successfully defends a homeless man, only to be wrongly implicated in the brutal murder of his co-counsel, a crime that their former client confesses to committing.

Frank Smith, famed writer of murder mysteries, boards Southwest Airlines heading from Phoenix to Baltimore. His goal is his 50th class reunion at Scott Academy, but behind him, he leaves the highly suspicious disappearance of his wife into apparent thin air four years ago and the relentless quest of Officer Ledezma whose impulse is that Smith has killed her and buried the body. But another mystery awaits Frank at Scott-a mystery 25 years old. A group...

A Minneapolis PI investigates the murder of the man who killed his wife Holland Taylor is comfortable in interrogation rooms. For years the cold dark cells of the Minneapolis homicide squad were his turf, and with the help of his partner he wrung confessions out of countless killers. But that was long ago. Tonight Taylor is on the other side of the desk. Tonight he is the suspect.   Taylor's career in the department ended after his wife and daughter...