Jim McGill Books

Imagine the United States has just elected its first female president. That would make her husband--what? Well, if he's the ex-cop who solved the murder of the president's first husband and brought the killers to justice...and if he's not the kind of guy to stand on formality...and if he doesn't want to be the head of the FBI...and if he takes out a license and becomes the first private eye to live in the White House... That would make him The President's Henchman. Jim McGill's first case is to find out who is stalking a member of the White House press corps, before that stalker turns the tables on McGill and maybe even threatens the president herself. He also has to be a shadow adviser to a young Air Force investigator who is looking into a he-said-she-said charge of adultery leveled against a female colonel working at the Pentagon, a case with the potential to derail the new president's administration before it has a chance to begin.

Always a good sport, Jim McGill, the first private-eye to live in the White House, agrees to accompany his wife, the president, to London to be her escort at a dinner given by the queen-yes, the one who lives in Buckingham Palace. Problem is, he'll have a week in England beforehand, while the president attends a G8 meeting, with nothing to do. Then a client comes to McGill, the daughter of a former Chicago cop McGill knew but didn't like when he was a captain on the CPD. McGill's former colleague went to Paris to scatter the ashes of his late, French-born wife in the Seine. While tending to that solemn obligation, the former cop managed to get into a brawl with and kill France's national sports hero. The guy from Chicago claims he was only saving a blonde woman from being beaten by the Frenchman, as French law actually required him to do. Only problem is, the blonde has disappeared. The former cop's daughter asks McGill to find the woman and save her father. Beats glad-handing the locals in nearby London, he decides. He just has to wrap up the case in time to get to dinner with the president and the queen. ForeWord Magazine called The President's Henchman "marvelously entertaining." Its sequel, The Hangman's Companion, is even more fun. With a French accent.

Somebody in Washington is updating Shakespeare. The first thing he wants to do is kill all the lobbyists. Knocking off three of them in consecutive weeks, he's off to a fast start. On the lapel of each victim, the killer leaves a pin that, arguably, resembles Porky Pig. The Metro police are on the case when Putnam Shady steps forward and identifies the third victim as a friend. Authority averse, Putnam gives the cops only bare bones information - but he tells Margaret "Sweetie" Sweeney that he thinks he will be the next victim. The reason, he explains, is quite simple. There are two plans afoot to seize control of the federal government. At the center of one plan is the speaker of the House of Representatives. The group behind the other plan consisted of Putnam and his three dead colleagues. Sweetie vows to protect Putnam. She enlists Jim McGill, the president's henchman, to find out who is behind the murders. But then McGill's whole world is turned upside down. His son, Kenny, is diagnosed with leukemia. President Patricia Grant's life is only slightly less tumultuous. Her enemies force her to leave the Republican Party. Erna Godfrey implicates her husband, Reverend Burke Godfrey, in the killing of Patti's first husband, Andrew Hudson Grant. But Reverend Godfrey refuses to go down without a fight. Amidst the turmoil, Welborn Yates and Kira Fahey schedule their marriage - and inevitably have to deal with wedding crashers.

The Last Ballot Cast is a story so big it has to be told in two parts. This is Part 1. With his son and his wife, the president of the United States, both near death, Jim McGill makes a choice that may save, or lose, both of them. As McGill makes his agonizing decision, an old nemesis, Dr. Damon Todd, escapes from CIA custody. Breaking out with Todd are two former covert operatives whose past is so bloody the Agency had to retire them. Now, all three are targeting McGill. In Patti's absence, Acting President Wyman has to find a way to bring Reverend Burke Godfrey to justice without causing a massacre. Captain Welborn Yates draws a bead on the car thief who killed his best friends and travels to the Caribbean to set up an ambush. All that is but the preface for the dirtiest, three-candidate presidential election in the country's history.When all is said and done, every big question is answered, including one that concerns us all in an election year: Does one person's vote matter?

The Last Ballot Cast is a story so big it has to be told in two parts. This is Part 2. With his son and his wife, the president of the United States, both near death, Jim McGill makes a choice that may save, or lose, both of them. As McGill makes his agonizing decision, an old nemesis, Dr. Damon Todd, escapes from CIA custody. Breaking out with Todd are two former covert operatives whose past is so bloody the Agency had to retire them. Now, all three are targeting McGill. In Patti's absence, Acting President Wyman has to find a way to bring Reverend Burke Godfrey to justice without causing a massacre. Captain Welborn Yates draws a bead on the car thief who killed his best friends and travels to the Caribbean to set up an ambush. All that is but the preface for the dirtiest, three-candidate presidential election in the country's history.When all is said and done, every big question is answered, including one that concerns us all in an election year: Does one person's vote matter?

When you win reelection to be president of the United States by one electoral vote, as Patricia Darden Grant has done, you're going to make a lot of people angry. Some of them might even try to change the outcome by violence. The Secret Service fears an assassination attempt at the president's second inauguration, one using drone launched missiles. The president could forsake the public ceremony, but that would tell the terrorists they have her running scared. Her second term would become a lost cause. She refuses to let that happen, and informs the Secret Service it will be up to them to keep her safe. Not entirely up to them, though. James J. McGill, will also be on the case. So will White House Chief of Staff Galia Mindel. Even retired SAC Celsus Crogher is called back to make sure no harm comes to the president. Then McGill's life gets even more complicated. His friends, Investigating Magistrate Yves Pruet and his bodyguard Odo Sacripant, come to town searching for a stolen Renoir painting. Gabbi Casale is already at the White House, finishing up McGill's official portrait. The old gang from Paris is back together. Only McGill feels Pruet is holding out on him. Something more than finding a masterpiece is at stake here. Something that, oddly enough, might tie in with the attempt on the president's life.

One Saturday morning, a new client comes to Jim McGill with a desperate plea. Zara Gilford says someone is planning to kill her husband. Jordan Gilford is famous as a whistle-blower who exposed corruption at two major defense contractors. Now, he works for the Inspector General's office at the Pentagon. Zara tells McGill someone wants to make sure Jordan doesn't find any thievery inside the Department of Defense. That same morning, Abel Mays, a despondent public high school football coach who has lost two star players from his team to the recruiting efforts of the coach at the exclusive Winstead School in Georgetown, uses an assault weapon to gun down the players who deserted him, their new coaches and the teammates who try to intervene. Then Mays is found shot dead in his SUV - after his weapon is used to kill one last victim: Jordan Gilford. For FirePower America lobbyist Auric Ludwig this is a dream come true. A good guy with a gun has killed a bad guy with a gun. Zara Gilford isn't buying the idea that Mays killed her husband. She persuades McGill to find out who really killed him. McGill's investigation threatens Ludwig's narrative. But a political firestorm is just one of the problems McGill will face. The president asks her henchman to bring Jordan Gilford's killer in alive, and that's when things get really dangerous.

President Patricia Grant has been impeached. Her trial in the Senate and the fate of her presidency lie just around the corner. That leads James J. McGill to suggest publicly that he might break the noses of any number of Washington pols. White House Chief of Staff Galia Mindel tells McGill he's not being helpful. She sends him to work a case in Los Angeles. A friend of Galia's has just had her frozen embryos stolen. McGill knows he'll need a fed to run interference for him with the LAPD. He teams up with BIA Co-director John Tall Wolf. Even out in La-La Land, though, McGill can't escape Washington politics. The primary suspect in the theft has close connections to House leadership, the very people who initiated the impeachment charge. Even worse, McGill learns of a threat against his life. Somebody doesn't like him snooping around in SoCal. That guy wants to do more than bust McGill's beak, he wants to punch his ticket.

Nothing lights a fire under Jim McGill like the thought of someone threatening his family. So when he gets a call from his elder daughter, Abbie, about a frightening development, he's ready to rip somebody a new one. Only he learns that the Secret Service has initiated a new measure to protect his children. SAC Elspeth Kendry has combed the service's ranks to find young agents who closely resemble Abbie, Ken and Caitie, the idea being that the decoys will confuse and divert anyone harboring bad thoughts for the McGill kids. The plan works only too well. Special Agent Carrie Ramsey is kidnapped by a gang who think she's Caitie McGill. In no small way, and with some legitimacy, Caitie blames herself for the abduction. She's determined to help the special agent regain her freedom. That's something McGill is reluctant to do at first. Then Carrie's parents come to McGill and plead with him: Help save the life of a young woman who was ready to sacrifice hers for Caitie. Reasoning doesn't get any more compelling than that. McGill goes all out. Even to the point of wangling an FBI badge for himself.

As President Patricia Grant nears the end of her second term, three big questions hang heavy in the air: Who will succeed her as the next president: her vice president, Jean Morrissey, or Senate Majority Leader Oren Worth? After a Navy warship shoots down two Chinese fighter jets, how far will hostilities with China go? And, of the utmost personal importance to Patti Grant, will her husband and henchman, Jim McGill, live to see the end of her presidency? McGill is targeted by a cluster of killers known as los muertos , working under the direction of an enigmatic contract assassin called Taps. So McGill summons his colleagues -- the private detectives who will staff his newly expanded firm, McGill Investigations International -- to help keep him alive and kicking. They're soon put to the test when an ambush and ensuing fire-fight shatter the peace of the posh Washington neighborhood of Georgetown. Undeterred, McGill and his colleagues continue the hunt, leading to a climax that leaves McGill fighting tooth-and-nail for his life.

McGill has left the building — the White House, that is — but he hasn’t gone away. The Paris office of McGill Investigations International refers a case to the boss in Washington, DC. A man who’s dying in Munich, Marlon Janeway, wants to get in touch with his sister, Alice. The problem is, he can’t find her. Alice works backstage for Teagan Tobias, a performance artist with a barbed-wire opinion of the human race. Somewhere between Tobias’ last show in Atlanta and his opening night in Washington, DC, Alice vanished. McGill accepts the task of finding her, preferably before Marlon expires. Another search is on for McGill’s partners in the firm’s Austin,Texas office, Maj Olson and Gene Beck. Only they’re not looking for a missing person. Their job is to find a hat: the one John Wayne wore in the last movie he made. That makes it the most famous cowboy hat ever. In order to solve the mystery and recover the hat, Maj and Gene will have to contend with a challenge that might have made even the Duke grit his teeth. Things have changed somewhat for McGill and friends, but they work their cases with the same blend of wit, grit and style they always have.

When friends need a hand, McGill is their man. Former Metro PD detectives Meeker and Beemer, now working as private investigators, have a client who has a winning Grand Slam lotto ticket worth $212 million. Only there’s another winner, and this one has been officially announced while Meeker and Beemer's client feels like he’s getting squeezed out. With a nine-figure payoff hanging in the balance, Meeker and Beemer decide they’ll need McGill’s help to make sure things work out the right way. That same morning, newswoman-provocateur Ellie Booker drops in on McGill. She has a simple request for him. Tell her just how much trouble she might be facing. Only Ellie doesn’t want to share why she might be in danger. Unable to reach an agreement with McGill, Ellie walks out and almost gets gunned down the moment she leaves the building. At first glance, the two cases seem to have nothing to do with each other, but in McGill’s world life is never that simple. The Big Fix is classic McGill.

The youngest U.S. senator in American history arrives in Washington, D.C. He hales from Illinois, and his name is Andrew Baxter Lincoln … but he ran for office and won by abbreviating his first two names to their initials: A.B. Lincoln. The echo of his famous predecessor is both obvious and intentional. But now he’s in a fix. He’s the decisive vote in an otherwise evenly split Senate. The GOP and True South think Andy is their new plaything. Only he ran for office as a Lincoln Republican. That puts him at odds with the conservatives. Their problem might be solved by … well, another assassination. Andy recognizes that possibility and turns to Jim McGill for help. As ever, trouble never comes singly to McGill. The boyfriend of his daughter, Abbie, disappears and may have been kidnapped. Worse, China might have grabbed the brilliant young man. Abbie also turns to McGill for help. With double-duty to do, there’s one last problem. McGill is starting to feel his age.

Jim McGill has gone up against hardened criminals, crooked pols and the occasional homicidal madman. Dealing with those guys was a walk in the park compared to the news that a young official from the U.S. State Department delivers to him. U.S. intelligence says that China wants him dead. Not the whole country. Just the guy who calls all the shots. McGill is stunned. Why would someone like that want to do him in? Simple, McGill was the guy who spoiled China’s kidnapping plot. The one meant to bring dozens of the world’s brightest young minds to China and make them do Beijing’s bidding. Not wanting to go into indefinite hiding, McGill confers with Patti and President Jean Morrissey. They both agree there’s only one way to deter the Chinese. McGill has to run for president.