It was a scene from a "slasher flick" - a beautiful woman's terrified screams piercing the air, a dead body sprawled at her feet, blood staining the pristine sands of a Washington beach. But the blood is real, and the victim won't be rising when a director yells, "Cut!" In one horrific instant, a homicide detective's well-earned holiday has become a waking nightmare.

It seemed like a most unlikely instrument of death: a lady's cobalt blue pump with stiletto heels. But the fact that it was caked with the blood of - and found damningly close to - a very dead man gives Seattle Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont a solid lead into a case of lethal theatrics and unsavory union doings. He has a pay stub, a matchbook, one corpse - and an unsettling feeling of more to come. And he has a murder weapon. All Beau has...

detective J. P. Beaumont uncovers kickbacks and bribes in a Seattle iron worker's union, but his investigation may be curtailed by a long walk off a short I-beam.

"All manner of sinners and sufferers come to the rehab ranch in Arizona when they hit rock bottom. For Seattle detective J.P. Beaumont, there is a deeper level of Hell here: being forced to room with teenage drug dealer Joey Rothman. An all-around punk, Joey deserves neither pity nor tears--until he is murdered by a bullet fired from Beaumont's gun. Someone has set Beau up brilliantly for a long and terrifying fall, dragging the alcoholic ex-cop into...

Homicide detective J.P. Beaumont met the blonde on the beach. She was screaming. A dead man lay at her feet. Both the lady and the corpse were members of the State Parole Board. The killer could be seeking personal justice for one of the Board's fatal mistakes. Was the motivation for the killing vengeance, or obsession?

A desperate father's search for his runaway daughter has lef him to the last place he ever expected to find her: backstage at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. But the murders in this dazzling world of make-believe are no mere stagecraft, and the blood is all too real. The hunt for his child has plunged former Seattle Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont into a bone-chilling drama of revenge, greed, and butchery, where innocents are made to suffer in perverse...

The bloody corpses stashed in the broom closet of the Seattle School District building were lovingly entwined. It looked like a classic crime of passion to Detective J.P. Beaumont, especially when Pete Kelsey admitted his slaughtered wife was an A student in the fine art of adultery. Pete swore he had nothing to do with the deaths, but Beaumont never dreamed that Pete might be harboring a secret hotter than extra-marital sex, and more lethal than...

Until Proven Guilty: Murder isn't pretty, especially when the victim is a 5-year-old girl. Beau quickly discovers that little Angela Barstogi fell into the clutches of a religious cult under suspicion for child abuse. =520 \\ Injustice for All: It was supposed to be a restful seaside vacation--but murder has a way of following you when you're a homicide cop. Awakened from a pleasant nap by the sound of a woman screaming, Beau finds a distraught blonde...

The Seattle that Beau knew as a young policeman is disappearing. The city is awash in the aromas emanating from a glut of coffee bars, the neighborhood outside his condo building has sprouted gallery upon gallery, and even his long cherished diner has evolved into a trendy eatery for local hipsters. But the glam is strictly surface, for the grit under the city's fingernails is caked with blood. Beau and his new partner Sue Danielson, a struggling...

"The Starfire Breeze steams its way north toward the Gulf of Alaska, buffeted by crisp sea winds blowing down from the Arctic. Those on board are seeking peace, relaxation, adventure, escape. But there is no escape in this place of unspoiled natural majesty. Because terror strolls the decks even in the brilliant light of day . . . and death is a conspicuous, unwelcome passenger. Former Seattle policeman J.P. Beaumont--a damaged homicide detective...