Joe and Dottie Loudermilk are all set for the perfect early retirement. Joe's an ex-cop, and Dottie's a former English teacher, and as soon as the "SOLD" sign goes up on the lawn in front of their longtime Los Angeles home, they intend to take their brand new Ford pickup truck and Airstream trailer wherever the great American highway leads. Unfortunately, fate is determined to have two forms of trouble dog their every step: murder and their five incorrigible grown children. In Dottie's own words, the Loudermilk brood "go to school, but take pains not to learn anything remotely useful; date weird people and adhere to Mickey Mouse religions...And give birth to grandchildren from hell (whom they raise) like goldfish won at a church carnival." In this introductory adventure, Joe and Dottie visit the Grand Canyon in Arizona, where they're immediately confronted by a corpse in their bathroom, the FBI, an All-Pro lineman from the Los Angeles Raiders---and most frightening of all, their reprehensible son Bad Dog.Both lovers of the offbeat cozy, and parents who know the misery of wayward children, have declared the Loudermilk adventures an hilarious and, to quote The New York Times, "credibly sentimental" treat.

From acclaimed crime novelist Gar Anthony Haywood comes a riveting tale unlike any he's told before . . . Diane Edwards has spent the last eight months praying for a miracle after losing her son Adrian in a freak car accident at Seattle's Lakeridge Park. When she finds Adrian back in his bed one night—alive and well and oblivious to his death—it appears her prayers have been answered. But this isn't the kind of miracle Diane was expecting, because she soon learns Adrian is not the only one who's forgotten that fateful day in Lakeridge Park. The entire world has no memory of it, with the exception of Diane and three other people: Michael Edwards—Diane's estranged husband and Adrian's father.Laura Carrillo—Adrian's teacher, who loved him almost as much as his parents did.Milton Weisman—The agnostic, sixty-eight-year-old widower and alcoholic who lost control of the car that killed Adrian in Lakeridge Park. Over the next six days, these four people...

"A gritty compelling read," praised Entertainment Weekly of last year's It's Not a Pretty Sight. And the Chicago Tribune called it, along with other Aaron Gunner novels, "terrifically entertaining." With When Last Seen Alive, Gar Anthony Haywood plumbs the shocking all-too-real world of South-Central Los Angeles. Having more clients than he can use isn't generally Aaron Gunner's problem, but it happens that the PI is already on a case when beautiful Yolanda McCreary appears on his doorstep to offer him a second one. Her brother, Elroy Covington, apparently rubbed elbows with Gunner at the Million Man March in Washington DC, several months earlier, then neglected to do something almost every other attendee did afterward: come home. Gunner can't remember Covington, but takes on the case - unprepared for the cold trail the man left behind. At last, Gunner begins to suspect that a black extremist group calling itself The Defenders of the Bloodline is behind Covington's disappearance. The Defenders want Gunner to join them. The FBI wants Gunner's help in bringing them down. And neither party has any intention of taking no for an answer. With When Last Seen Alive, Gar Anthony Haywood explores the harsh realities of contemporary Los Angeles with grim accuracy and deep emotional insight, providing once again "a first-rate story, melding sharp social commentary with lively plotting and somersaulting dialogue" (The Washington Post Book World)From Library JournalA young Los Angeles woman wants series star Aaron Gunner to locate her brother, who never returned from the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. Gunner soon finds himself tangling with black extremists and the FBI. Realistic and compelling.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus ReviewsElroy Covington came a long way to disappear--all the way from the Million Man March in Washington to a run-down motel in Hollywood--but his sister, Yolanda McCreary, is convinced that even though LAPD Missing Persons has given up the search, Aaron Gunner can find Covington. Aaron, already busy trying to photograph L.A. city councilman Gil Everson with one of the limping prostitutes his wife Connie is convinced he favors, is none too eager to take on the case. Even so, he hands the snoop job off to aspiring teenaged photographer Sly Cribbs in order to look for Covington himself--and before you know it, somebody's tried to kill both Sly and Aaron and (talk about coincidence) steal crucial photos from both of them. Aaron's sure the councilman's beefy bodyguard could tell him all about the attack on the kid, but he thinks something still doesn't jibe, and he's right: The tug-of-war between the Eversons is more complicated than he can see. And the search for Covington leads Aaron (It's Not a Pretty Sight, 1996, etc.) into even deeper trouble with the Defenders of the Bloodline, a black-supremacist answer to the Ku Klux Klan bent on executing all the Uncle Toms the KKK might have missed on their last trip through town, and with a five-year-old newspaper scandal that won't stay dead. Ingenious but slapdash in the details, with Aaron continuing as one of the most maddeningly intuitive detectives since Nancy Drew. Start reading for the plot, and you'll stay, as usual, for the flavorsome African-American backgrounds. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Winner of the Best First Private Eye Novel Competition, this story introduces Gunner, detective turned electrician re-turned detective, who investigates the murder of two blacks by a white kid. The killer is found dead and it begins to look as though events are politically motivated.From Publishers WeeklyWinner of the 1988 Best First P.I. Novel Contest, this promising debut introduces black private investigator Aaron Gunner, hired to find the white man who walked into the Acey Deuce bar in South Central Los Angeles to blow away the owner, J. T. Tennell and Buddy Dorris of the Brothers of Volition, a black activist group. Buddy's sister, Verna Gail, feels the murder isn't getting enough police attention and hires Gunner, a P.I. who's trying to quit the business. He discovers that the killer is Denny Townsend, a white supremacist working on the fringes of a campaign to elect Lew Henshaw, a politician running on a law-and-order platform. Before Gunner can talk to Townsend, he finds himshot to death in Gunner's car. The cops are suspicious of Gunner, who soon is framed for the killing of Townsend's friend and possible accomplice, Stanley Ferris. To save his own neck, and to keep L.A. from erupting into racial violence, Gunner must find the connection between the politician, a local drug dealer and the Brother's charismatic leader, Roland Mayes. Haywood has a good ear for the sour voice of the true private eye and the sense of tired hopelessness of the underclass they have always served. One hopes to see more of Gunner. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Hard times are nothing new for private investigator Aaron Gunner. Working on the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles, he's seen more than his fair share of trouble. But when his cousin and confidante Del Curry commits suicide after allegedly killing his wife and critically injuring their daughter Zina, Gunner knows he's about to face the hardest times of all. He doesn't buy the LAPD's version of the shooting and isn't going to wait for Zina to regain consciousness to disprove it. Whatever drove Del to take his own life—-and possibly assault his wife and daughter—-Gunner's going to find it, even if it means learning things about his late cousin he'll wish he never knew. But first, he has a paying case to work, proving the innocence of an Afghan War veteran accused of murder. Plagued by seering migraines and occasional fits of rage, Harper Stowe III is counting on Gunner to fill the holes in his ruined memory that make him the perfect suspect in the killing of...

The new novel from a critically acclaimed and award-winning author - When Errol 'Handy' White returns to his native Los Angeles to attend the funeral of his old friend R.J. Burrow, who has been brutally murdered, a terrible secret threatens to reveal itself. Twenty-six years earlier, Handy, R.J. and O'Neal Holden pulled a heist that went horrible awry, and Handy's been waiting for it to come back and haunt them ever since. Was the murder linked to the past? Handy knows he can't leave until he finds out for sure.

Investigating the alleged suicide of a hip-hop star, Gunner uncovers a murderCarlton Elbridge, better known as C. E. Digga Jones, was too nice for gangsta rap. When he allegedly shot himself, he had millions in the bank, his face on the cover of Time magazine, and a nation of fanatics to mourn his death. He was found in a locked room, gun in his hand and bullet in his brain, and the police assumed it was suicide. Only the rapper's father thinks otherwise.Suspecting that his son was killed as the result of a hip-hop feud, Carlton's father hires private detective Aaron Gunner to investigate the death. As Gunner tries to juggle the case with security work for a conservative black talk-show host, he learns that for some in the hip-hop world, the thug life is much more than an act.

From Publishers WeeklyL.A. private eye Aaron Gunner has familiar qualities: he's youngish, not very successful (his "office" is behind a barber shop), eyed askance by cops but appreciatively by pretty women, medium-boiled with a strong ethical sense. The hook is he's black. When Darrel Lovejoy, head of a church-related Peace Patrol helping young gang members, is killed in a "drive-by," a witness names two "gang-bangers." The public defender of a jailed suspect asks Gunner to find the missing driver. Gunner is soon immersed in the squalid world of violence, drugs, readily available automatic weapons and the bone-deep despair of L.A. adolescent gangs. The eyewitness is a crackhead fed by a nasty drug dealer; the fugitive's older brother is not the upright citizen everyone thinks; a high-profile minister has his own secret; and some of the teenagers are frightening creatures. The title applies to them. The appealing Gunner was featured in Haywood's 1987 Fear of the Dark , which won Best First Private Eye Novel. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

When his ex-fiancée is murdered, Gunner vows to take vengeance on Los AngelesFor more than a decade, private detective Aaron Gunner has regretted letting Nina Hillman go. They met on a city bus while he was on his way to the Los Angeles Coliseum for a football game, and by the time they were through talking he had long since missed kickoff. He proposed to her quickly, only to get cold feet and cancel the wedding. After less than a year, she married another man. Eleven years later, Gunner is still alone, and Nina's house is a crime scene.The homicide detectives tell Gunner that Nina's husband has been abusing her for years. They assume that today he simply went too far. As he seeks justice for his long-lost love, Gunner uncovers a citywide chain of domestic abuse that he could have saved Nina from, had he been man enough to marry her. It's too late to protect her now. Revenge will have to do.

The apparent suicide of an unpopular, bigoted, former LAPD cop, Jack McGovern, has the most unlikely protagonist fighting racism, violence, and hostility to bring to light the truth about the ex-cop's death in the latest Aaron Gunner novel. Reprint.From Publishers WeeklyIn the third novel to feature African American L.A. private investigator Aaron Gunner (after Not Long for This World ), a white cop much loathed in the black community apparently guns down an unarmed black kid in a dark alley following a robbery. After being publicly crucified, the policeman puts a bullet through his head and dies unmourned. But then an eyewitness confides in Gunner that he saw the kid shoot twice before the cop fired and asks the PI to investigate. In need of a client, Gunner reluctantly takes the volatile case. He finds the gun (a dummy that shoots blanks) and a Latina policewoman willing to listen to this discomfiting new evidence. Barely pausing for narrative breath, the author adds intriguing elements to his plot: the eyewitness isn't a thoroughly convincing player; his brother is beaten up; another kid involved in the robbery is tight-lipped; the dead boy's uncle is a gambler with big debts; and most people in the black community are ready to let this possible injustice pass, believing a larger justice has been served by the cop's death. Gunner is a rarity in recent detective fiction: soured, yet utterly believable, tough and resourceful without being cartoonishly overblown. This pulsating mystery strengthens an already forceful series. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus ReviewsEight months after racist cop Jack McGovern guns down 12-year-old liquor-store thief Lendell Washington and insists--despite the evidence--that the kid fired on him first, McGovern's remorseful suicide flushes out Mitchell Flowers, a cowed, guilty witness who corroborates McGovern's unlikely story and hires L.A. shamus Aaron Gunner (Fear of the Dark, Not Long for This World) to prove it. McGovern's LAPD colleagues--including Danny Kubo, an IAD investigator who owes him big--weren't crazy about McGovern, and don't welcome Gunner's attempts to exonerate him; and the Washington family-- including Lendell's cousin Noah Ford, now doing time for the robbery- -are convinced he's a cop trying to torpedo their pending lawsuit. Only Deanna Lugo, the partner McGovern was breaking in when he responded to the scene, helps Gunner, in bed and out, untangle a nifty web of treachery and coverups to lay the case to rest for good. Haywood's freshest, leanest yet--and it won't be hurt by the Rodney King echoes. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The new novel from the critically acclaimed and award-winning author - When Joe Reddick and his family are threatened in their LA home by a masked, knife-wielding intruder, it means serious trouble for a gang of desperate criminals. The threat sends Joe Reddick over the edge. He's lived the nightmare of losing a family to a crazed killer once, and he's not going to let it happen again. After sending his wife and son to safety, he goes to war, determined to kill those responsible. Soon Reddick’s living nightmare will finally be over. One way or the other . . .ReviewA volatile man gets pushed to the wall once too often. One night nine years ago, Joe Reddick of the West Palm Beach Police Department came home to find his wife and children slaughtered by an intruder. His fellow cops caught the perp, but Joe's nightmares raged on, so he decided to make himself a new life in Los Angeles. Although Joe could escape West Palm, however, he couldn't escape himself, and now Dana, his second wife, is about to divorce him and take their son Jake, 5, because she can't trust his volcanic temper. That temper will be sorely tried after Joe's car is sideswiped by a van whose driver, Andy Baumhower, is jittery because he's been charged with getting rid of the corpse of Gillis Rainey, the squirrelly financial advisor Baumhower and his three associates in Class Act Productions--Perry Cross, Ben Clarke and Will Sinnott--had kidnapped in a futile attempt to get him to pay back the $100,000 he'd taken from them before they had to repay their even bigger debt to druglord Jorge Lizama, Jr. Naturally, the Class Act partners feel they can't risk the chance that Reddick might remember his brush with Baumhower at the wrong moment and go to the cops. But Clarke picks exactly the wrong way of insuring that he won't: breaking into his home and threatening him and his wife and son. Reddick, who has no intention of losing a second family to violence, decides to take matters into his own hands, and by the time the curtain comes down, the cast will have been decimated, much to the gentle reader's righteous satisfaction. An efficient noir actioner that's also a sharp study of a hero who "wasn't an evil man, just an astoundingly unfortunate one." -- Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2011In this brutal stand-alone from Haywood (Cemetery Road), former Florida cop Joe Reddick relocates to Los Angeles following the trauma of discovering his wife and two children slaughtered in their home. Nine years later, a minor car accident involving a careless driver with something to hide, Andy Baumhower, precipitates a similar threat to Reddick's new wife and son, Dana and Jake. Reddick, determined to eliminate the threat by whatever means necessary, goes after Baumhower and his three business partners, who are trying to cover both a kidnapping gone bad and a $250,000 debt to sadistic Mexican drug boss Ruben Lizama. In a battle of wits and violence, Reddick is constantly on the verge of going berserk. The action takes plenty of suspenseful twists toward the showdown. This is as dark as Haywood's Aaron Gunner series (All the Lucky Ones Are Dead, etc.), but the tortured Reddick is a much less likable character. -- Publishers Weekly, 5th September, 2011