Steve Martinez Books

T'is the weeks before Christmas in Upper Peninsula, Michigan, but some big events indeed are stirring for Lakota deputy sheriff Steve Martinez. The normally sleepy woodland town is uncharacteristically alive with activity after the body of one of its most respected residents, Paul Passoja, is found at a forest campsite, the victim of what looks to be a bear attack.From the moment he arrives on the crime scene, things just don't add up for Steve Martinez. Why would Passoja, a skilled camper and hunter, be careless enough to scatter bacon grease near his tent? Lead by curiosity, Steve begins an unofficial investigation of the mishap, only to discover that the "random" animal attack might not be so random after all. It seems that quite a few people in town had reason to do in Paul Passoja, but the evidence isn't pointing to anyone in particular.The more Steve investigates, the deeper he sinks into a mystery as old as the town itself. The seemingly peaceful forest haven wa

LARGE PRINT VERSION. Henry Kisor’s second mystery featuring Deputy Steve Martinez, A VENTURE INTO MURDER, returns to Porcupine County, where gossip never can be stifled for long. But one secret has been kept quiet for years . . . and those who try to uncover it sometimes wind up dead. Steve had fallen in love with the place after running away from a secret of his own, and had made peace with his past. But the body of a mob hit man is discovered and one of Steve’s fellow deputies falls over the long-buried corpse of a man last seen a century before. The two deaths are seemingly unrelated. As Steve probes deeper, he’s confronted with problems that could jeopardize everything: his career and his relationship with a widow who has secrets of her own. Steve is willing to do whatever it takes to keep the peace, but he may find that even in the quietest of towns some things are better left buried.

LARGE PRINT EDITION. Porcupine County, a peaceful little place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, suddenly becomes the unlikely backdrop for a grisly and high-tech treasure hunt when amorous teen-agers stumble upon a headless corpse. When a second cadaver turns up, Deputy Steve Martinez realizes the bodies are someone’s twisted idea of a game. Worse, the election for county sheriff is fast approaching. And Steve’s relationship with the beautiful Ginny Fitzgerald becomes strained as he searches for a way to connect with her foster son. CACHE OF CORPSES becomes Steve’s toughest investigation yet.

When a pretty teacher is killed by a muzzle-loading ball during an encampment of historical re-enactors Sheriff Steve Martinez is troubled by her role-playing persona as a frontier prostitute. Sex can be a motive for murder. But the death is ruled an accident. Besides killing a person with a muzzle-loader takes way too much time and effort. The next few months however bring a surprising number of seemingly unrelated muzzle-loading deaths. A statistical anomaly or something worse? To find the answer Steve must battle skeptics a lack of forensic evidence an ever shrinking budget and a rocky romance with his longtime love. Hot on the trail in the deep woods he suddenly discovers that he is his quarry s newest target.

When the remains of three little girls turn up inside railroad hopper cars, Sheriff Steve Martinez faces a troublesome case, for the cars had sat for years on a siding deep inside his beloved Porcupine County. After Steve and his comrades do the spadework, the FBI moves in, thinking their Unsub is both rapist and murderer. But Steve believes the killer--or killers--instead hired someone to dispose of the bodies. With the help of lawmen of all kinds, including the Ontario Provincial Police, and even Detroit mobsters, Steve doggedly tracks "the Beast." This intricate police procedural, set in the wilds of Upper Michigan, features not only an exciting high-tech chase around Lake Superior but also the revival of a clever World War II deception.

When the mutilated body of a black man is found hanging from a tree in Mackinac County 275 miles away across the wild Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Porcupine County Sheriff Steve Martinez is dismayed. His bailiwick is ninety-nine per cent white, and the victim, an army veteran, had just been acquitted by an all-white jury in the rape of a white woman. Steve had feared racial repercussions after the verdict and suspects bigotry led to the violent death of Billy Gibbs. But a mystery surrounds the victim himself. How could an ordinary truck mechanic possess such a large bankroll? Why was he so concerned about the well-being of his brand-new, tricked-out pickup truck? Steve is severely shorthanded, but to shine light on Gibbs and to find his killer—or killers—Steve and Sheriff Selena Novikovich, his counterpart in Mackinac County, dig deep into the case. With the help of their deputies, several state troopers, a retired FBI agent who must fend off a hostile CIA, and a military police colonel willing to put his career on the line for the comrade who saved his life in Iraq, the two sheriffs doggedly track the clues across five states. The cops turn up another murder as well as a clutch of fervent neo-Nazis, one of whom is a gorgeous but vicious woman whose sexual proclivities rival those in Fifty Shades of Grey. The Riddle of Billy Gibbs, the sixth in Henry Kisor's Steve Martinez series, vividly explores a troubling side of American life.