New Releases by Dick Lochte

Perfect for fans of Jack Reacher and Joe Pickett, Rockets’ Red Glare is a fast-paced thriller that introduces Sage Mendiluze, a police deputy determined to find and stop a series of relentless and brutal murders. After two wilderness guides are gunned down at a remote campsite in a nearby national forest, it’s determined that the fatal shots came from Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation. Tribal Police Deputy Sage Mendiluze is called in to hike the rugged backcountry and investigate. Sussing out the sniper’s perch, he and his Australian shepherd, Peak, just escape becoming two more casualties when an IED is tripped. The site tells Sage there are two perps. The explosion confirms they are devious and extremely dangerous. Soon, more visitors to national parks across America have been murdered. After his display of stellar investigative and tracking skills, Sage—with Peak at his side—is recruited by Special Agent Maggie Comstock to join the task force tracking the perpetrators. Every level of government—even the president himself—insists this reign of terror must end by the Fourth of July, just days away. Clock ticking toward mayhem, Sage and Maggie are determined to stand in its way. But the mysterious murderers are just as resolute—and they intend to celebrate the holiday with a bang.

From bestselling author and iconic news personality Al Roker comes The Midnight Show Murders, the second book in the delightful Morning Show Murders series. Celebrity chef and Wake Up, America! cohost Billy Blessing heads to Los Angeles in order to help launch O’Day at Night, a new late-night show hosted by Irish comedian Desmond O’Day. LA brings up bad—and bloody—memories for Billy, but a special request from the head of the network sends him flying across the country. Twenty years ago, before becoming a famous New York chef, Billy worked in LA at Chez Anisette. One unfortunate evening, the young hostess, Tiffany Arden, was murdered with a meat tenderizer. While Billy always suspected the head chef, Roger Charbonnet, to be the murderer, the case was never solved. Now, back in a city he never thought he’d return to, Billy is confronted by Roger, who is still determined to exact vengeance. After a horrifying explosion during taping kills more than Desmond O’Day’s chance at high ratings, Billy believes that he was the intended target—and that Roger was somehow involved. But when politics, infidelity, and high finance get sprinkled in, the case turns out to have more ingredients than Billy ever imagined. Filled with the high-style hilarity, insider info, and surefire suspense that are Al Roker’s series trademark, The Midnight Show Murders is a five-star feast for any fan of top-flight mystery fiction.

A noir novel of redemption, a lightning-fast thrill ride, a witty whodunit and an edgy, no-holds-barred love story that reads like a modern day Maltese Falcon on steroids...by one of the most acclaimed and admired writers in crime fiction. David Mason (aka Mace), a hardboiled ex-con, returns to Los Angeles after nine years to discover that the angels who gave the city its name have long since flown the coop. Instead, he finds a secret formula as deadly as it is priceless, a beautiful woman who may be deadlier than the formula, a ghost dog who prowls at night, an oddly likeable mobster whose life is on the line and assorted show biz flakes, CIA wheeler-dealers, international terrorists and eccentric home-grown leg-breakers. Blues in the Night was a 2013 Shamus Award finalist for best novel of the year from the Private Eye Writers of America. Praise for Blues in the Night "Mace is the real deal, a hardboiled, no-nonsense pro who knows how to handle himself, and yet is self-aware enough to know he has some serious chinks in his armor. But it''s his snappy, sardonic Chandleresque take on La La Land-and the changes society and technology have gone through while he was in the joint-that really seal the deal. More please, Mr. Lochte." Mystery Scene Magazine "Tense, fast-moving crime novel from Nero Wolfe Award-winner Lochte... Tough, independent Mace is a wild card and one that Lochte should play again. Publishers Weekly "Lochte turns in an excellent performance with this gritty solo effort. [A] solid, well crafted thriller with a likable protagonist and an engaging cast of supporting players." Booklist "Fast paced and funny." Kirkus Reviews "It''s a twisty journey with surprises all along the way, and it''s all told with zest and humor that kept me reading past the time when I usually turn off the lights. Lots of great L. A. local color, and colorful characters, too. You can''t go wrong here." Bill Crider Praise for Dick Lochte "An intelligent, playful, knowledgeable writer. Lochte has a great gift for the grotesquerie." Los Angeles Times "Dick Lochte is a superb craftsman." Sue Grafton "Few capture California better." Kirkus Reviews

Written by legal legend Christopher Darden, who gained nationwide fame as one of the prosecuting attorneys during the O.J. Simpson trial, L.A. Justice is a hard-driving thriller, crafted with an insider’s understanding that real justice is always dirty. Randy Bingham wakes in the dark, with his head throbbing, his memory blank, and a body on the floor. It’s Sherri Dietz, his fiancée, and she was killed with Randy’s gun. A spacey romantic with a mile-long streak of Catholic guilt, Randy Bingham is about to become chief suspect in the trial of the century, and he doesn’t remember a thing. The case falls in the lap of Virgil Sykes, a hard-nosed police detective, who works with high-flying District Attorney Nikki Hill to learn what really happened in that darkened, bloody room. With the help of Sherri’s son, a ten-year-old computer whiz who was hiding upstairs when his mother was murdered, Virgil and Nikki stumble onto a wide-ranging conspiracy that threatens to undermine the very foundations of the LAPD.

Una ragazzina con uno strano nome, un cinico investigatore, un cane scomparso, una catena lunghissima di omicidi... La ragazzina dal nome buffo, Serendipity, è spiritosa e saggia. L’investigatore privato sulla quarantina che assume per ritrovare Groucho, il suo cane scomparso, si chiama Leo Bloodworth ma è detto “il Segugio”: cinico e un po’ all’antica, è capace di solide intuizioni… ma anche di colpi bassi, se messo alle strette. Serendipity vive con la nonna, attrice di sceneggiati televisivi un po’ svampita. Se la madre conduce una vita sregolata, il padre è scomparso fin dai tempi del Vietnam. In una soleggiata California dove il flower power sembra far da sfondo a ben più loschi scenari di mafia messicana, sarebbe stato meglio non svegliare “il can che dorme”: un susseguirsi di omicidi svelerà una complessa rete di connivenze capace di tenerci avvinti fino all’ultima pagina.

Al Roker returns with his most tantalizing mystery to date—as celebrity chef turned sleuth Billy Blessing finds his plate full of danger and secrets from his long-buried past threaten to make a comeback. Before Billy Blessing was tapped to co-host the morning show Wake Up, America!, the celebrity chef lived a totally different life under a very different identity: as wily con man Billy Blanchard. Caught trying to run a scam on a shady Detroit businessman, Billy did time for his crimes, and has successfully kept that part of his past covered up ever since. But when Eddie Patton, a nosy ex-cop with a long memory, tries to blackmail him, Billy may have to pay up or to see the embarrassing truth blogcast to the world. And when Patton winds up dead, it’s just the first in a string of killings that has America’s most beloved TV host scrambling for clues and desperate to clear his name. Throw in a budding romance with a visiting movie star, and Billy Blessing may have finally gotten himself into one sticky situation even he can’t talk his way out of. “Great fun! Al pulls back the curtain to reveal what really goes on when the cameras go off.”—Harlan Coben “Great fun, full of nifty twists and turns.”—Carl Hiaasen “An engaging performance . . . The Talk Show Murders has all the charm and depth of a network morning show. The characters are pithy and colorful.”—Mystery Scene “As well-paced and thoughtfully prepared as an Alice Waters tasting menu.”—Kirkus Reviews “For fans old and new, The Talk Show Murders is a book not to pass up.”—The Philadelphia Tribune

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Al Roker and Dick Lochte''s The Midnight Show Murders. As famous for his popular cooking segment on Wake Up America! as for his swank Manhattan bistro, Billy Blessing can add prime murder suspect to his impressive list of accomplishments. Because when one of the network’s top honchos ends up dead, it’s a poisoned serving of Blessing’s coq au vin that’s to blame. Billy knows he’s being framed, but proving it won’t be easy—not with his perky cohost involved in a brass-knuckles contract negotiation, a Mossad agent about to tell all on the air, and a ruthless international assassin arriving in the Big Apple. Now Billy isn’t so much concerned about staying alive in the ratings . . . as just staying alive. For the closer Billy comes to uncovering an international conspiracy, the closer he comes to being canceled—permanently.

When TV presenter Maddie Gray''s body is found dumped in gangland LA, the police arrest a young black man found at the scene with Maddie''s ring in his pocket. For Nikki Hill, an ambitious Afro-American attorney, it is a make-or-break case.

Things were different in the 1960s: love was freer, morals were looser, protests were hotter, and America hadn''t yet matured into the cynical, embittered country it is today. But some things were the same: a young man starting at the bottom at a popular magazine (Ogle, "Devoted to the Masculine Pleasure-Principle") could dream of rising through the ranks; greedy corporate bigwigs could conspire to milk their companies dry; and the solution to a problem could be summed up with one word: murder.

A young attorney at a leading law firm, Mercer Early is handed the seemingly routine case of an L.A. cop accused of shooting and killing his wife, a case complicated by two more police officers who kill their spouses.

A young attorney at the most pretigious African American law firm on the west coast, Mercer Early finds his career and his life on the line after he becomes embroiled in a complex murder case.

First Holmes and Watson, then Nero and Archie, Now Leo and Serendipity--two detectives, two narrative voices, twice as much sleuthing and double the fun. First, imagine Katherine Hepburn at fourteen. Next, in your mind''s eye, replay Humphrey Bogart, at his middle-aged best, as Sam Spade. Now picture this oddest of couples as the newest duo in detective fiction and you''ll have a perfect portrait of the memorable leads in Sleeping Dog."" --Los Angeles Times Book Review Originally published in 1985 by Arbor House 0-87795-738-X and by Warner in pbk. 0-446-32661-5, Sleeping Dog won the Nero Wolfe Award and was nominated for the Edgar, the Shamus, and the Anthony Awards. In 1999, the Independent Mystery Booksellers''s Association named it one of their 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century. Poisoned Pen Press will republish the sequel, Laughing Dog, later this year.

Whether Lochte''s characters are walking the mean streets of Los Angeles or strolling along the boulevards of New Orleans, Lochte captures the magic of a place and constantly surprises the reader with his clever plots and wry twists. In the title story, "Lucky Dog," the team of Leo Bloodworth and Serendipity Dahlquist are introduced when they pool their considerable investigative talents to the question of whether Leo''s new girlfriend, romance novelist Missy Lambert, killed herself with sleeping pills or was really murdered. In "Rappin'' Dog," a simple blackmail scam goes deadly wrong and Leo and Serendipity are on the scent to find the killer. "Get the Message introduces the reader to New Orleans detective Terry Manion when he gets called in to question suspects in an old-fashioned Southern murder case. And in 1960s New Orleans, Manion''s predecessor, private eye J.J. Legendre is involved in investigating the murder of a young Asian woman, who is the pregnant wife of an industry baron, in "Murder at the Mardi Gras." Nine stories show off Lochete''s trememdous talent for setting, character and plot.

"INGENIOUSLY STRUCTURED AND PLOTTED . . . [Lochte] returns for the second time to New Orleans and captures it to the last levee-sided beignet at dawn. In fact, Lochte has become one of its prime delineators." --Los Angeles Times A straight-shooting, no-nonsense P.I. like Terry Manion working for the king of ultratacky tabloid TV? Not exactly a match made in heaven. But when Manion gets the chance to reopen a thirty-year-old murder case involving his mentor, J. J. Legendre, he jumps at it. J. J. was still a cop on the New Orleans beat in 1965 when he busted volatile black militant leader Tyrone Pano for murder. Pano called it a frame-up, and Legendre believed him. Legendre finally cracked the case, but three decades later, it falls to Manion to pick up the pieces his teacher missed--and write the shocking ending to the whole sordid scenario. . . . "THE NEON SMILE is Dick Lochte''s magnum opus. . . . I couldn''t put it down." --Jonathan Kellerman "Dick Lochte has a style of his own: giddy and gaudy on the outside, cynical and perverse under the skin." --The New York Times Book Review