Showing results by author "Blair Howard" in All Categories

In 1982, ten-year-old Emma Jacobs disappeared while on her way home from school. Almost four decades later the case file lands on Kate Gazzara’s desk. A cursory review of the case quickly turns into a personal nightmare for her team member, Detective Anne Robar. Haunted by vague, shadowy memories, of her own abduction more than thirty-seven years ago, Anne becomes consumed by them.

“Stand absolutely still, Amanda,” she read, “and you won’t get hurt.” Two seconds later a bullet from a sniper’s rifle shattered the driver’s side window of her Lexus SUV. That’s how it began, early on a Friday morning when Amanda, Harry’s wife, found the note tucked under her windshield wiper. The incident was quickly followed by a series of events that would put his family and friends in deadly danger and test Harry to his limits.

When prominent defense attorney Madison Lombardi drops dead on the street outside her office of a perceived heart attack, no one pays much attention . . . Except for her husband. When a second attorney, her law partner, drops dead a week later in almost the exact same spot, more people begin to pay attention, including police chief Wesley Johnston. Homicide detective Kate Gazzara, much to her dismay, is assigned what appears to be little more than a case of coinciding medical events. However, appearances can be deceiving, and Kate remains unconvinced by the notion of mere coincidences.

Mystery woman, Morrigan Doyle, is in prison. Finn Doyle, her son, has ties to the Irish mob in New York. He became acquainted with Harry Starke when Harry was investigating his mother’s billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. But Finn has an agenda of his own and wants to hire Harry to “find a friend,” Matteo Rossi. Rossi, a low-level thug, a soldier in the Irish mob, is missing and Finn is worried, thinking someone has “offed him,” and he wants to know who. Initially, Harry turns Finn down.

The saga continues with three more spell-binding Kate Gazzara murder case files: Book 13: Feathers, Book 14: Samson, and Book 15: Indigo. Greed, revenge, jealousy, money, love, and hate are all motives for murder and all in a day’s work for Lt. Kate Gazzara. If you love whodunits, police procedurals, realism, fast-paced nonstop action, and strong women detectives, you’ll love these three highly rated thrillers. If you’ve not yet met Kate Gazzara, a dedicated female detective in a world dominated by men, then this is where you can get to know more about her and her case files.

Five years after physicist Mark Holder discovered the Slipstream Drive in 2058, humanity reached for the stars and began to colonize the galaxy. For centuries, humans continued to populate system after system without encountering intelligent alien life. Some twelve hundred years later, after many generations of relative peace, in the year 3278, human space is invaded by a powerful and mysterious enemy. To these invaders the very concept of free will is heresy. Their crusade—to eradicate humanity. The war begins, and the fight for the survival of the human race is on.

Kingsley Lynch fell to her death from a seven-story, downtown rooftop garden. Was it an accident, suicide, or was she pushed? The two detectives assigned to the case decided she jumped. Her husband, an influential city councilor disagrees, and six weeks later Kate Gazzara is assigned to reinvestigate.

Commodore Richard Morian’s mission is to capture the Imperator, but it will take a planetary invasion on a grand scale to do so, a battle fought in space, in the air, and on the ground. And all this to a backdrop of political intrigue that threatens to bring the entire Sovereign system down.

On a balmy afternoon in May 2002, wealthy stockbroker Peter Nicholson was turkey hunting with three friends in Prentice Cooper State Forest when he tripped, fell on his shotgun, and accidentally shot himself … dead, but did he? Fifteen years later, as a last resort, Nicholson’s mother asks Harry Starke to find the truth. As we all know, Harry loves a cold case, but … as always, there’s a twist in the tale.

A missing person, two murders, an enigmatic Irishman, and a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme bring Harry Starke, Captain Kate Gazzara and her trusty K9 companion, Samson, together again in a bewildering detective thriller that takes them deep into the seedy side of New York City,

Chickamauga: A Novel of the American Civil War is the story of a great battle of the Civil War and the people who fought it, many of them real and some of them the product of the author’s imagination. Chickamauga is a story of the heroism, selflessness, and frailty of the men whose deeds are etched forever on the fields and forests at Chickamauga, the River of Death. Chickamauga is the story of the generals who planned the grand strategies that would be played out by lesser but braver men.

Who was she? Who put her there? Why did she have to die? Harry Starke vows to find the answers to those questions. But the trail has gone cold and Hill House is a desolate ruin with many secrets. To find the answers, Harry must embark upon an investigation that will put him and those close to him in deadly danger, take him to the lost and long-forgotten streets buried under the city, and deep into the Dark Web where he comes face to face with murder, organized crime, prostitution, and human trafficking.

The Lolita Conspiracy: Brandon Beck hanged himself, or did he? On a cold dark night in February, Harry Starke runs into someone he hasn’t seen in almost twenty-five years. The Last Straw: Cassie Morgan was just seventeen-years-old when she died at the hands of a sadistic killer. Homicide Detective Harry Starke caught the case and he knew right from the beginning that it was going to be a bad one. One Dark Night: One dark night in late summer of 1998, teenagers Hunter Flagg and Samantha Goodkind were murdered, shot to death in Hunter’s pickup.

In Liar Liar, Book 8 in the Harry Starke Genesis series, PI Harry Starke is tasked with solving the ten-year-old cold case of Brice Manning, a nineteen-year-old university student whose death was declared a suicide by the police. But Harry, skeptical at first, soon realizes that the case isn’t as simple as it seems, and that the people closest to Brice may be hiding some dark secrets. As he delves deeper, Harry uncovers a web of lies and deceit that will leave you on the edge of your seat.rilling ride from start to finish.

On a balmy, late summer morning in Hilden Heights, Hattie Baker is found dead in her pool, and she wasn’t the first. A socialite and successful business owner, Hattie was an excellent swimmer. Even so, her death was ruled an accident. Her boyfriend, Mason Willis, however, doesn’t believe it was an accident. He thinks she was murdered and goes to Harry Starke for help. Thus begins an investigation that almost costs Harry his life.

Fourteen months after first contact, as the Sovereign Star Systems prepare for another alien attack, Captain Richard Morian and the Avenger are ordered to Beta Arietis in the constellation of Aries where they hope to find new resources and perhaps even new allies to help with the war effort.

Tabitha Willard was a beautiful, wealthy young woman with everything to live for, so why did she take her own life? What did powerful US Congressman Gordon “little Billy” Harper have to do with it? And then there’s Lester, “Shady” Tree, a crooked entrepreneur and a man with secrets. What about him? Harry Starke, an ex-cop turned private investigator, wants to know, and his search for the answers leads him deep into the shadows of the underworld, and the body count begins to rise. Can Starke find the answers he needs and stop the carnage?

The phone call came on a Tuesday evening in the middle of August. Harry Starke hadn’t heard from his old school friend in almost five years, and he hadn’t thought about him in almost as long. Tom Sattler wanted to meet, and it wouldn’t wait until morning. But when Harry arrived at Sattler’s home less than an hour later, he found him lying in a pool of blood with a single gunshot wound to his head and .22 revolver lying close to his hand. Was it suicide, or was Tom Sattler murdered? If so, by whom and why?

When Kelsey Hart disappeared three years ago, her older sister, Brit, never gave up hope. But as time passed, and she heard nothing from her sister, she knew she needed help. Enter PI Harry Starke, the man with a reputation for solving the impossible cases. As Harry digs into Kelsey’s disappearance, he quickly realizes that nothing is as it seems. Slowly, he uncovers dark secrets and a web of lies that will shake the Hart family to its core. And with every clue he uncovers, the mystery deepens, and people begin to die.

Secret plots to exterminate most of the world’s population to bring peace to the world. Two old enemies must work together to foil the peacemakers.