Showing results by author "Jerold Last" in All Categories

Roger takes a peculiar case from a new client, a lawyer with an odd story. Before long he’s investigating a murder committed on a ski slope in California near Lake Tahoe. The killing may be linked to another case he’s investigating on behalf of another new client, a shady mobster from Los Angeles. Shasta Weber, who we first met in “A Train to Nowhere” and is now a detective in Roger’s agency, goes undercover to work for the mob while she looks for a vital clue. Meanwhile, Roger gets into trouble with some Nevada casino enforcers, one of whom tries to kill him. From the lush ...

The sixth book in the popular Roger and Suzanne mystery series finds Roger and Bruce hired to go undercover impersonating the owner and handler of a Champion German Shorthaired Pointer named Juliet to investigate certain irregularities that might be occurring at dog shows in California. To complicate this case the bodies of dead judges start popping up and Suzanne picks up a mysterious stalker sending her most unwelcome gifts. Throw in drug cartels and corrupt cops and it sounds like a typical job for our detective couple. The Deadly Dog Show can be read as a stand-alone novel. Fans of the ...

A close friend from Roger’s past is tasked with solving several recent murders in Prague and Budapest. However, a bounty is placed on his head while he is en route to Eastern Europe to investigate the crimes. Roger and his partner Vincent are hired to take his place. They fly to Europe to find the answers to several questions: Was the assailant who pummeled a man to death just outside a synagogue in Prague’s Old City human, or was he a Golem lurking in the area? Who is The Cobra, a shadowy character with major connections to the worlds of espionage and art theft? In the meantime, ...

Roger and Suzanne have to solve a cold, but still hazardous, case in a hot climate. Roger’s newest client was fired after leading a disastrous tour to Cuba during which a tourist died in a devastating accident. Our detective couple joins a subsequent identical tour of Cuba to seek evidence the catastrophe was murder, not an accident. There’s no shortage of suspects in this perilous case, including the Cuban Intelligence Services, the CIA, a sprinkling of additional spies waiting for them in Havana, and several suspicious characters traveling on their tour. Danger lurks as they ...

Roger is hired by a cruise ship line to investigate the murder of a passenger from one of their boats during an onshore excursion to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, an autonomous Basque Republic in Northwest Spain. From Santiago’s sacred old church with its shrine to Saint James to modern Amsterdam and back, it’s not going to be easy. With unexpected twists and turns, the plot takes you on a wild ride filled with danger, intrigue, and treachery. Fans of suspenseful thrillers that keep you guessing should buy this e-book or paperback or download their Kindle Unlimited copy from Amazon...

The Origin of Murder is a fast paced whodunit mystery that brings Roger and Suzanne back to South America. The couple are on a luxury cruise through the Galapagos Islands when Suzanne finds a woman’s body with a couple of bullet holes in it floating in the Pacific Ocean. There’s a ship full of suspects, including a shady DEA agent and two nubile sisters from San Francisco, with more dead bodies to come. The supporting cast includes their young son Robert, Bruce the nanny, and Paraguayan policeman Eduardo Garcia. Join our detectives on a visit to the Galapagos Islands as Charles Darwin ...

A serial killer is leaving a trail of dead women across Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. The gruesome corpses all seem to have died in exactly the same macabre way. There may be a link to a small group of scientists who meet annually in different locations in the region. Roger Bowman and Suzanne Foster are asked by the local police to attend this year’s meeting of the group in Lima, Peru to try to find out who was present at the previous meetings when the murders occurred. And the reader is off on a fast paced pursuit of the killer through Lima, Cuzco, and Machu Picchu in Peru and Chile’s ...

Parts of a dismembered corpse are found on a rocky stretch of beach in Montevideo, Uruguay, apportioned equally between the Memorial to a German cruiser sunk in World War II and the Memorial to Jews killed in the Holocaust. Because of the murder victim's strategic location shared between two antithetical monuments, the Uruguayan press names her “The Ambivalent Corpse”. Private detective Roger Bowman and his girlfriend, scientist Suzanne Foster, find themselves traveling through Uruguay, Southwest Brazil, and parts of Paraguay and Argentina to help solve the case. This fast paced mystery...

Roger finds a box in the ocean containing more than a quarter of a million dollars in cash while SCUBA diving in Hawaii. He attempts to return the money to the proper authorities. But things go wrong. Before long the money has disappeared along with two missing FBI agents who can’t be found, and Roger is in trouble with the local police and the FBI. Was the missing money intended for an illegal drug deal, as a payoff for crooked cops, or as a ransom for a kidnap victim? Is it real or counterfeit? Roger follows a twisted trail of illicit drugs, police corruption, and murder in this ...

Who murdered the professors at the University of California? How were they killed? What was the motive? Two mysterious deaths are already well on their way to becoming cold cases when Roger and Suzanne are tasked by the university with solving these obviously related crimes. Roger and Suzanne go undercover as visiting faculty at the University’s campuses at Berkeley and San Francisco to investigate the how and why of these crimes and the who of whodunit. It doesn’t take long before Suzanne suddenly becomes the killer’s next target as the investigation becomes very personal for the ...

Science Can Be Murder combines three books from the Roger and Suzanne South American Mystery series into one omnibus volume. It starts with the first book in the series, the novel The Ambivalent Corpse, an ideal introduction to the series characters. Parts of a dismembered corpse are found on a rocky stretch of beach in Montevideo, Uruguay, apportioned equally between Memorials to a German cruiser sunk in World War II and to the Jews killed in the Holocaust. Roger and Suzanne travel from Uruguay to Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay to solve this baffling and grotesque murder case. In the ...

Suzanne Foster discovers the body of a Bolivian scientist in the parking garage next to the Medical School at UCLA. The police treat the killing as just another drug deal gone bad. P.I. Roger Bowman, Suzanne, and his team investigate the murder, which seems to be linked to a small biotechnology company and a new anti-cancer drug they are developing. The reader is off on a whirlwind tour of Los Angeles and Westwood in search of clues. The clues are all there: Can you figure out whodunit before Roger does? This fast-paced novella features characters from the author's popular South American ...

Roger and Suzanne are back in Montevideo, Uruguay after being summoned from Los Angeles by a late night phone call. One of their friends is suspected of murder and needs their skills as detectives to help clear him of the charges. Life for Roger, and especially for Suzanne, is more complicated these days as they now have an infant son, Robert. The three of them, accompanied by Robert’s nanny, Bruce, fly to Uruguay and the game is afoot. Before long we have our heroes directly in the middle of a gang war, off for a quick trip to Chile to learn all about the local crime scene, and meeting ...

The long-awaited seventh novel in the popular Roger and Suzanne mystery series is the second novel starring prize-winning dog Juliet as a featured character. Suzanne, with a lot of help from Bruce, enters Juliet and her puppy Romeo in several local hunt tests. Naturally, Suzanne finds a dead body at the hunt test venue her first time handling Romeo. Roger, recruited at the scene by an old friend from the local Sheriff’s Department, is asked to help in the murder investigation. It looks like an impossible case to solve. Roger launches a complex, multifaceted investigation, picks up a ...

“Five Quickies for Suzanne and Roger” is an anthology of shorter stories featuring characters from the popular South American mystery series of novels. In this novel-length collection, Roger solves cases in Montevideo, Uruguay; Fortaleza, Brazil; and Los Angeles, California in a novella, a novelette, and three short stories---five quickies. Three obvious murder victims, two additional dead bodies, and a mysterious dog add spice to these stories. The five stories give you five times as many chances to see if you can deduce whodunit before Roger and Suzanne do. Good luck.

A late-night visitor tells Suzanne that something seems to be wrong with a research program she is involved with. He’s right. The CEO of a Southern California biopharmaceutical company disappears at sea under suspicious circumstances. Shortly afterwards, the Chief Scientific Officer from a competing company is brutally murdered. Both of the victims, and many of the suspects, were engaged in canine agility training. With Roger busy elsewhere, this case falls to Suzanne, who takes over the investigation and the responsibilities of the missing CEO. Fortunately, she has Romeo, a German ...

Roger and Suzanne return to Montevideo, Uruguay to attend a festive dinner honoring their friend's promotion to police captain. There's a surprise guest waiting for them when they arrive in their hotel room. Who killed the body they find in the bed? Roger and Suzanne are the lead suspects in a murder, their allies on the police forces of Uruguay and Paraguay may be the targets of a conspiracy, and nobody can be trusted. This fast paced, action filled, novella should satisfy readers of the previous books in the series as we renew acquaintances with old friends and enemies, and say farewell ...

A former client who gave Roger and Suzanne their first German shorthaired pointer, Juliet, mysteriously loses her new husband a few days after their wedding. The bumbling local sheriff treats the disappearance as a spouse developing buyer’s remorse and running off. The client, questioning the official nonchalance, hires Roger to find the answers. And we’re off on another complicated murder case involving dangerous wineries, the apocalyptic history of a small rural town, California’s deadly drought, a raging wildfire, corrupt cops, buried cadavers, a critically wounded private eye, and...

In a fast-paced story of spies and murder, Roger investigates the violent death of a Paraguayan agent in a small British city. The victim was stabbed while he sat in an empty railroad car on a siding in the local railroad station. Roger’s investigation initially takes him to Australia and Malaysia, but it soon becomes apparent that the answers he is seeking will be found back in Great Britain. Along the way he meets an attractive agent with an agenda, as well as several additional spies of various nationalities with their own agendas. Soon he has a second violent killing to solve, with ...

A family vacation to the Sacramento River Delta area, where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers flow into San Francisco Bay, turns into another complicated murder case for the detective couple to solve. Roger is hired to find missing show dogs that have been stolen from their registered owners. The whole family joins him in Northern California for what seems like it will be a pleasant week to introduce the kids to where Suzanne was born and grew up. However, Roger and Suzanne's nanny and au pair, Bruce, finds the body of a former navy SEAL he served with in the Middle East, and becomes ...