A former police officer turned private investigator, Nick Nowak is haunted by his abrupt departure from the department, as well as, the traumatic end of his relationship with librarian Daniel Laverty. In these three stories set in Chicago during the early eighties, Nick locates a missing young man for a mysterious client, solves a case of arson at a popular nightspot, and goes undercover to prove a dramatic suicide was actually murder.

The most unlikely person in the world asks Private Investigator Nick Nowak to investigate the un-suspicious death of a priest. It's winter 1984, Private Investigator Nick Nowak has allowed his life to fall to pieces: he's stopped taking cases, lost his apartment and works as a bartender at a sleazy bar tucked under the El. All he wants to do is lick his wounds after the death of his lover, Detective Bert Harker.

In the fifth book of the award-winning Boystown mystery series, it's fall 1982 and Chicago is gripped by panic after five people die from poisoned Tylenol capsules. Amid the chaos, the Bughouse Slasher takes his eighth victim, this time striking close to private investigator Nick Nowak. With the Chicago Police Department stretched to its limit, Nick takes matters into his own hands. But what will he do with the Bughouse Slasher once he finds him?

Thanks to an elderly spinster sleuth and her ingenious cat, Christopher Holmes has enjoyed a celebrated career as a bestselling mystery writer. Until now. Sales are down and his new editor is allergic to geriatric gumshoes. On the advice of his agent, he reinvents his fortyish, frumpy, recently dumped self into the sleek, sexy image of a literary lion, and heads for a Northern California writers conference to try and resurrect his career.

Special Agent Jason West is seconded from the FBI Art Crime Team to temporarily partner with disgraced and legendary "manhunter" Sam Kennedy when it appears that Kennedy's most famous case, the capture and conviction of a serial killer known as the Huntsman, may actually have been a disastrous failure. The Huntsman is still out there...and the killing has begun again.