Joseph Hansen

In a neighborhood plagued with violence, Dave Brandstetter uncovers a corporate crime. Gifford Gardens has gone to hell: persistent flooding has reduced the neighborhood to a slum, a battleground for rival gangs. Anyone who can afford to leave has already pulled up stakes, and Paul and Angela Myers are among those who are left. To make ends meet, Paul takes on long-haul truck driving, which is as dangerous as it is lucrative, and it's not long before...

For the sake of a frightened child, Dave Brandstetter takes on his very last case. In his decades as an insurance investigator, Dave Brandstetter has never shied away from violence, and he's had more than his share of close calls. Time is catching up with him, his body is slowing down, and his wit is not as sharp as it used to be. But he will forgo retirement once more for the sake of a puzzle no detective could resist. Walking on the beach, a friend...

Fadeout is the first of Joseph Hansen's twelve classic mysteries featuring rugged Dave Brandstetter, an insurance investigator who is contentedly gay. When entertainer Fox Olson's car plunges off a bridge in a storm, a death claim is filed, but where is Olson's body? As Brandstetter questions family, fans, and detractors, he grows certain Olson is still alive and must find him before the would-be killer does. Suspenseful and wry, shrewd and deeply...

Joseph Hansen's groundbreaking investigator Dave Brandstetter delves into the suspicious death of a gay entrepreneur. Rick Wendell's ranch is far from town. A remote, dusty hideaway, its only inhabitants are Rick, his aging mother, and her horses. One night, Rick's mother returns from the movies to find Rick lying on the floor, stark naked and with a gaping bullet wound in his chest. Standing over him is his lover, a mustachioed hippie, who swears...

With retirement just out of reach, Dave Brandstetter investigates the killing of a Vietnamese immigrant. As an insurance investigator, Dave Brandstetter has spent his life unraveling suspicious deaths. Now, well into middle age, he has decided to retire for the sake of Cecil, the young TV reporter who loves and cherishes him, and has too often risked his own life for Dave's work. But retirement does not come easily. An old friend in the public defender's...

In the small town of La Caleta, Dave Brandstetter investigates the murder of a very unpopular cop. When Ben Orton's head is found bludgeoned by a heavy flower pot, the people of La Caleta are stunned-not because their police chief has been murdered, but because no one thought to do it sooner. A bruising, violent man, Ben had a commitment to order that did not always take the law into account. But as insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter is about...