Richard B. Schwartz Bücher

Dr. Leonard Barnes, a prominent Irvine surgeon, is the part-time medical examiner for the Laguna Beach PD. A gentle but formal man, his naked, comatose body is found beside the freeway near San Juan Capistrano. His coma has been brought on by alcohol poisoning; Len Barnes is a teetotaler. Len's friend and new love, Dr. Sally Cornell, is a UCSD forensic anthropologist. She knows that Len has been poisoned but neither she nor Lieutenant Tom Deaton know why or by whom. Tom's investigation takes him into Len's deep past and the actions of a man from that past, a man now entangled with terrorists. Because of the federal interest in the case, Tom teams with FBI Special Agent Gwen Harrison. The investigation takes them from California to Ohio to New York, Texas, Missouri and, ultimately, to London. Poison Touch is both very public and deeply personal, an international thriller and a human study of the intimate relationships within the Deaton novels' ensemble cast.

We are in the California desert above Lake Elsinore; the remains of Terry Randall and his wife Susan are lying in the dust and grit. Susan's right hand is missing. The initial verdict is that Terry killed Susan and then himself, using the shotgun which rests at his feet. The putative cause is post-traumatic stress disorder. Terry has recently returned from Iraq. The branch bank of AmeriCal Savings which he previously managed has been closed and he has been working for a wine distributorship called FirstGrowth. Susan's mother and Terry's parents deny that murder and suicide could even be considered as remote possibilities. Lieutenant Tom Deaton investigates, entering overlapping worlds of wine connoisseurship, espionage, rapacious business dealings and extreme violence. The fourth in the Tom Deaton series, Death Whispers is a tale of intellection and detection set in Laguna Beach, Los Angeles, northern Virginia and the District of Columbia. It features the ensemble cast members who have appeared in the previous Tom Deaton novels, taking them to the narrow border separating justice from violent revenge.

Following the Jack Grant and Tom Deaton series, No Exit features a new series protagonist: FBI Special Agent Gwen Harrison. Introduced in Poison Touch, Gwen is a native American, descended from distinguished ancestors, including a warrior who fought beside Enchanted Horse (Gwen's correction of 'Crazy' Horse). She is an amateur tracker whose avocation becomes a dangerous obsession. After a bloody altercation in a San Francisco alley she decides to channel her energies and skills in more constructive ways by joining the Bureau. After leading her class at Quantico and achieving some dramatic wins in the midwest Gwen elects to escape the local media glare by relocating to the New York field office, where her skills are quickly employed in a major terrorism case-Operation Huis Clos--one that reaches its bloody climax in the heart of the nation's capitol.