Johnny Merak Books
She was the kind of woman a man always noticed, mostly because of her eyes: deep and dark, they'd held a warmth that could easily kindle a fire in one's soul. Now they were staring sightlessly up from the sidewalk. It was a killing without a motive, just the first of a string of murders that led Johnny Merak, private investigator, from the teeming underworlds of Chicago and Los Angeles to the edge of the New Mexican desert, trailing a killer who left no clues. But Merak knew the Mafia, its methods and its hiding places--because he'd once been part of that scene himself. And now he was determined to exterminate the evil bosses who controlled the...SAVAGE CITY! The second great hard-boiled entry in a long-running crime series!
The murder of Carlos Galecci, a kingpin of organized crime, was not unexpected. Only three days earlier, fearing for his life, he'd hired Los Angeles private eye Johnny Merak to discover who was threatening him. Then he's found seated in his private vault with a knife in his back--a vault whose combination only he knows, a vault no one else has entered in the interim. Summoned to the scene, Merak is hired by Gloria, Galecci's statuesque blonde wife, to discover her husband's killer, and to determine how an impossible crime has been committed. But in accepting the assignment, Merak soon finds himself marked for death as well! The third entry in this exciting hardboiled crime series.
Suspecting his wife Janine of having an affair, businessman Charles Jensen hires private eye Johnny Merak to follow her. Merak learns that Jensen had divorced his first wife Arlene - who has since disappeared... Convinced that Jensen had arranged Arlene's murder, Arlene's sister, Barbara Winton, also approaches Merak to investigate. Ignoring warnings to drop his investigations, he's knocked unconscious, and wakes next to a woman's corpse - a woman who has been shot with his gun. Then the police arrive...
In Los Angeles, the wealthy Marcia Edwards asks investigator Johnny Merak to find her missing grandson. Merak suspects it's a mob kidnapping. There's someone else who wants to hire him: the model Angela Cliveden, who has been receiving life-threatening phone calls. Merak discovers that she is the girlfriend of Tony Minello of the local Mafia. But when she is found murdered in her apartment, Merak is trapped in a potential Mob War and matching his wits with a cunning serial killer.
LA Private Investigator Johnny Merak accepts the diminutive Charles Henning as a client, little realizing the danger he will face... But soon, when a series of brutal gangland murders begins, Lieutenant O'Leary, leading the police investigation, is not pleased to find Johnny Merak at each of the murder scenes. And it seems that Henning had been there too
In Sharky's casino, a man places a large bet on number thirteen, which comes up. He lets it ride for a second time and wins again, then stakes the lot on thirteen again - and walks out with a million dollars When Sharky hires Johnny Merak to find the man who's taken his money, there's a spate of murders - with Johnny himself a candidate for death...
Edith Somerville, great-granddaughter of a wealthy banker in L.A., received two-dozen red roses with a note attached: she would receive one rose less every day and on receipt of the last rose she would die... Private Detective Johnny Merak sets out to find the would-be killer and when certain members of the family are murdered, Johnny finds proof of yet another, earlier, murder. But it's not until Edith receives the final rose that the killer is unmasked...
Small-time crook Johnny Merak is determined to get Maxie Temple, a former crime boss who'd framed him for a three-year stretch in San Quentin, and is now returning home from Mexican exile. But the 1950s Los Angeles Underworld wants Temple and Merak dead, and decides that by killing Temple, they can remove both men with one shot. But Merak isn't having any of the deal--he wants to clear his name and escape his Syndicate ties. When beautiful Dawn Grahame shows up, he finally has a reason to fight for a better life. This is the dark side of the L.A. underworld: the unknown hoodlum who knows too much, a vicious killer named Madden, Madden's girlfriend, who has to be juiced with heroin to stop her from talking, and Clancy Snow and Dutch McKnight, two Underworld bosses who hover like black spiders of treachery and vice over the very core of Los Angeles, manipulating its social, legal, and political life to their benefit. Can Johnny find a way through this morass? A noir crime classic, filled with riveting action, the first of a stunning new series!