Earl Emerson, Author William Morrow & Company $24 (241p) ISBN 978-0-688-13750-2
In this chatty whodunit, fire chief Mac Fontana (Morons and Madmen), a no-nonsense and likable guy, takes on a serial arsonist who is toasting tiny Staircase, Wash., one corner at a time. The fires are only a nuisance at first, but the horizon...
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Earl Emerson, Author Ballantine Books $22 (272p) ISBN 978-0-345-42202-6
Emerson's works, consistently fast-paced, moving and richly evocative of the Pacific Northwest, often create more questions than they answer. In this 11th in the Thomas Black series (Deception Pass, 1997), the roots of the mystery stem from old...
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Earl Emerson, Author Ballantine Books $22 (246p) ISBN 978-0-345-40068-0
A serious moral issue--how to handle a guilty client--lies at the heart of Emerson's latest book about Seattle PI Thomas Black (after The Million-Dollar Tattoo), but its beat is drowned out by Black's incessant banter. The very wealthy entrepreneur...
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Earl Emerson, Author Ballantine Books $20 (344p) ISBN 978-0-345-38485-0
Romance and a series of murders and assaults stretching into the past command the attention of Seattle detective Thomas Black, last seen in Yellow Dog Party, in his engrossing fourth case. Black is overjoyed when asked by Mrs. Roxanne Lake to follow
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Earl Emerson, Author William Morrow & Company $19 (287p) ISBN 978-0-688-09635-9
The hard-boiled, wisecracking detective with a heart of gold is alive (just barely) and not well at all when we first meet him in this clever, well-paced mystery. Hired by four area businessmen to locate the women of their dreams, Seattle private...
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Earl Emerson, Author Avon Books $4.99 (0p) ISBN 978-0-380-71047-8
Fire chief and part-time sheriff Mac Fontana is puzzled when members of his Washington town's fire department are targeted by a homicidal maniac; his involvement with the wife of a paramedic leads to terrible revelations. PW called this ``a tightly...
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Earl Emerson, Author William Morrow & Company $17.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-688-09333-4
Emerson brings back Mac Fontana ( Black Hearts and Slow Dancing ), fire chief and part-time sheriff in a small Washington town, in a tightly written and suspenseful tale of murder and corruption. One of Fontana's men dies of poisoning, another has...
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Earl Emerson, Author William Morrow & Company $17.95 (225p) ISBN 978-0-688-08335-9
``Deviant behavior'' is an ironic label for Todd Steeb, a lonely, teenaged track star whose behavior throughout this story is actually heroic, and who, at the outset, is thought to have run away from home. Private investigator Thomas Blackfirst...
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Earl Emerson, Author William Morrow & Company $17.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-688-07533-0
This is the fifth mystery from the Shamus Award-winning author of Fat Tuesday and Nervous Laughter. Unwillingly substituting for the sheriff of Staircase, a town in Washington, Mac Fontana decides the job is more attractive when alluring April Smith
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Earl Emerson, Author Ballantine Books $22 (0p) ISBN 978-0-345-40066-6
Seattle PI Thomas Black, last seen in The Vanishing Smile, brings an element of reason to a bizarre case when his old chum and fellow PI, Elmer ``Snake'' Slezak, makes some outlandish claims about the dead woman in his bed: he didn't kill her, she...
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Earl Emerson, Author . Ballantine $24.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-345-44589-6
Seattle fireman Emerson, of Shamus Award–winning Thomas Black detective series fame, returns with his 12th novel—a tale of arson, intrigue and sublimated rivalries among Seattle firefighters. John Finney, son of a retired fire chief and...
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Earl Emerson, Author William Morrow & Company $24 (2300p) ISBN 978-0-688-13751-9
Heroic, colorful and flawed, the men and women attracted to firefighting fuel the excitement in this deftly constructed, compelling fifth Mac Fontana mystery (following Going Crazy in Public). Fontana, a former Seattle fire inspector, is now...
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Earl Emerson, Author Ballantine Books $21 (0p) ISBN 978-0-345-38486-7
In his eighth adventure (following The Portland Laugher), Seattle PI Thomas Black accompanies lawyer Kathy Birchfield to a mysterious meeting with a client in the mountains on a rainy night. Birchfield's car strikes a pedestrian who seems to...
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Earl Emerson, Author . Ballantine $25 (368p) ISBN 978-0-345-49301-9
Last seen in Catfish Café
(1998), Thomas Black finds his memory playing tricks on him at the start of Emerson's dark and disturbing 12th novel to feature the Seattle PI. As Black recuperates in the hospital after being severely wounded...
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Earl Emerson, Author . Ballantine $24.95 (350p) ISBN 978-0-345-49299-9
Emerson (Firetrap
) takes a page from James Dickey's Deliverance
in this rousing survival yarn that pits a group of mountain bikers against gun-toting, vengeance-obsessed adversaries and the unleashed fury of Mother Nature. Zak Polanski, a 28-y
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Earl Emerson, Author . Ballantine $24.95 (350p) ISBN 978-0-345-46292-3
This uneven stand-alone suspense novel from Seattle fire lieutenant Emerson (The Smoke Room
) opens promisingly with the gritty first-person narration of Capt. Trey Brown, a Seattle firefighter, touching on past trauma that led to his estrangement...
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Earl Emerson, Author . Ballantine $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-345-46290-9
How can a book go wrong when it opens with the immediate aftermath of a pig's 11,000-foot drop into a Seattle home? The answer is: it can't, really. Emerson's compelling latest defies easy categorization. Its mystery elements echo his...
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Earl Emerson, Author . Ballantine $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-345-46288-6
A renegade in a stiff, uncaring fire department is the hero of this thriller by the author of 11 Thomas Black detective mysteries and two other firefighter novels (Vertical Burn
; Into the Inferno
). When Paul Wollf was 10, he and his older brother,
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Earl Emerson, Author . Ballantine $23.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-345-44591-9
A starred or boxed review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of exceptional importance that hasn't received a starred or boxed review.INTO THE INFERNOEarl Emerson. Ballantine, $23.95 (352p)
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