Ike Schwartz Series by Frederick Ramsay
Ike Schwartz #1
1 - Artscape: Ike Schwartz Mystery 1
Frederick Ramsay
...here he stood in the sweltering Shenandoah Valley, his shirt already damp at nine-thirty in the morning and a whole day ahead of him. Sheriff Ike Schwartz, duly elected by the people and sworn to enforce the laws of the United States, the State of Virginia, the County of Rockbridge and the incorporated town of Picketsville. He was also expected to bend those laws here and there, overlook the kids with a keg in Craddock's woods, the incestuous family of Craddock himself, and turn a blind eye to the broken speed limits, parking violations, and certain cash transactions entered into by members of the Town Council. An easy life, all in all. He reckoned as negligible the number of serious crimes, difficult cases, or dangerous situations he experienced. And then...From Publishers WeeklySmall-town sheriffs come in all shapes and sizes, but Ike Schwartz, who dominates Ramsay's solid debut, is both engaging and extravagantly overqualified for the job. Ike retreats to his hometown of Picketsville, Va., and wins the job of sheriff after a personal disaster in a botched CIA operation. In quiet Picketsville, Ike's biggest worries are domestic squabbles, speeding tickets and an occasional problem with a Callend College student. It's Callend's superb art collection, valued at half a billion dollars and protected by a state-of-the-art security system, that changes all that. Funded by terrorists, and using a disaffected federal agent, mobsters plan to hijack the collection and hold it for ransom. The smoothly planned operation goes off with several hitches, including a killing and the taking of hostages. Callend president Ruth Harris, who believes Ike to be the stereotypical small-town sheriff, is screaming for "higher" authorities to take charge. Laid-back but decisive, Ike does that, calling on his experience, his country roots and old allies as he matches wits with the savvy professionals who committed the crime. While Ike emerges as the most fully developed character, several secondary characters stand out as well, as Ramsay nicely mixes town and gown, sophisticates and rustics, thugs and masterminds. Ike Schwartz seems destined for a bright future. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistNot quite mystery, not quite espionage, this occasionally awkward hybrid still manages to juggle its various tangents well enough to keep the pages turning. When Sheriff Ike Schwartz is called in to investigate the theft of a multimillion-dollar art collection from a local college, the trail is almost cold, college officials having deemed local law enforcement incapable of handling anything more than drunken students and traffic violators. But Schwartz is no rube. A former CIA agent, he is better prepared than most to handle matters, and it doesn't take him long to find out that a former FBI agent is involved in the crime and that the thieves are merely henchmen for folks who want the art for something other than its black-market value. A romance for Ike adds spice to the mix, as does the unraveling of the events surrounding Ike's quitting the Company. Ramsay tries to get cozy with a few too many characters here, but Ike's personal story is appealing enough to get readers over the occasional bumps in the road. Stephanie ZvirinCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Read online
Ike Schwartz #2
2 - Secrets: Ike Schwartz Mystery 2
Frederick Ramsay
Waldo Templeton was, at best, a mediocre organist. He was also careless, so his killer was able to follow him to the sanctuary of Stonewall Jackson Memorial Church in Picketsville, VA, and dispatch him. Then the Vicar’s secretary follows Waldo to an early grave. The Vicar, the Reverend Blake Fisher, sent to Picketsville when his ambition overcame his common sense, had had enough trouble in Philadelphia. He did not need a corpse behind his altar. He did not need his gun to be stolen, and he definitely did not need the local police breathing down his back as a suspect in a double murder. Aided by the computer wizardry of his newest deputy, Sam (Samantha) Ryder and the country wisdom of Billy Sutherlin, Sheriff Ike Schwartz must sort through false leads, the unsolicited helpfulness of a politically connected parishioner and missing counseling files belonging to Blake’s predecessor. Then the Vicar himself becomes the killer’s third target.... Secrets is the sequel to Ramsay’s first novel, Artscape, featuring Sheriff Ike Schwartz.
Read online
Ike Schwartz #3
3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3
Frederick Ramsay
It's the bleak midwinter and the Shenandoah Valley is poised on the brink of an unusually icy and snowy season. Alexei Kamarov's body is discovered in a forest within the Picketsville town limits. His driver's license identifies him as Randall Harris. The last Sheriff Ike Schwartz heard of Kamarov, he was reported missing, presumed dead, in Russia, the victim of intelligence game-playing.Ike is not happy with this piece of his past. Ike's former CIA colleague and friend Charlie Garland asks Ike to keep a lid on the investigation.Slowly, interagency rivalries surface as local petty criminals vie with international assassins and plotters for attention. All the while, Buffalo Mountain looms in the background. Does the community's violent history have something do with this recent murder? Or is Kamarov's death part of some greater political plot? The third in the Sheriff Ike Schwartz series. **
Read online
Ike Schwartz #4
4 - Stranger Room: Ike Schwartz Mystery 4
Frederick Ramsay
The elderly Jonathan Lydell III is proud of his family history. He is related to the Virginia Lees (both Light Horse Harry and Robert E. Lee) and to the Custis family (and thus to George Washington). But these connections donat seem to matter to the current generation. In fact, they seem utterly disinterested in family, history, or position. But for Lydell, family history is the only real thing leftathat and his antebellum house. Lydell is committed to restoring the home to its antebellum configuration, complete with a stranger roomaan attached room with its own entrance, separately locked and kept for use by unknown travelers. Found in many family homes in the 1800s, the room was intended to protect the family from unsavory guests. Nearly 150 years ago, an inexplicable murder took place in the locked stranger room of the Lydell house. The murderer was never caught. As far as Lydell is concerned, this brutal history just adds to the rich character of the house. But when a new, identical murder is committed in the same room, not even sheriff Ike Schwartz and FBI agent Karl Hedrick can explain it. Why would history repeat itself? What could explain these identical murders? Could the Lydell family history hold the key? The fourth novel in the Ike Schwartz series.
Read online
Ike Schwartz #5
5 - Choker: Ike Schwartz Mystery 5
Frederick Ramsay
Nick Reynolds, his pilot’s rating barely a month old, drops off the radar at night over the Chesapeake Bay. Investigating agencies call it another tragic pilot error accident. No trace of the plane is found in the Bay’s murky waters. Ike Schwartz, erstwhile sheriff of Picketsville, on vacation, is approached by Charlie Garland, an old CIA friend, to look into the disappearance. The missing pilot was engaged to Charlie’s niece and the family is not dealing well with the lack of closure. More importantly, Nick, just before his disappearance, had placed a call to Charlie moments leading him to conclude something more than pilot error might be involved in the disappearance. Ike accepts the assignment as a favor to Charlie and also because vacations do not work for him. Ike’s wide-eyed entry into a simple missing person’s case catapults him into an international thriller á la Robert Ludlum with intimations of terrorism that might threaten the nation and its leaders. Clandestine operations, angry watermen, and out of place dredging spoil complicate Ike’s efforts to unravel the mystery.**
Read online
Ike Schwartz #6
6 - The Eye of the Virgin: Ike Schwartz Mystery 6
Frederick Ramsay
On the same evening that a body is found in Picketsville’s urgent care clinic, a mysterious break-in occurs at the house of one of Callend University’s faculty. Both seem to be connected to an icon, “The Virgin of Tenderness, ” in the faculty member’s possession. The fact that the body is that of the faculty member’s ex-wife’s lover who, more interestingly seems to have entered the country under an assumed name only complicates things for Sherriff Ike Schwartz. In the search for killers and thieves, what appears to be outdated spycraft, a microdot, is found on the icon. In an era of sophisticated cyber-encrypted information transfer, the presence of this bit of CIA nostalgia brings in Charlie Garland and the forces from Langley. Ike has no wish to engage with them or their problems. He has killers to apprehend and sets out to do his job in spite of the meddling by government agencies. That the bit of spycraft is something more than old time microphotography and it carried information that implicates the involvement of Israel’s super secret Mossad only complicates an already messy set of problems. A dead CIA agent, a rogue handler, and a potential international incident are avoided outside the faculty member’s house as the good, the bad, and the ugly are neatly sorted and carted away. During the course of all this, Ruth’s mother arrives for an extended visit, Ike and Ruth are officially engaged, and the Sutherlins, Billy, Frank, and Essie, like Dilsey Gibson, endure.
Read online
Ike Schwartz #7
7 - Rogue: Ike Schwartz Mystery 7
Frederick Ramsay
Ike Schwartz and Ruth Harris had to delay a vacation in Las Vegas because at the last moment, Ruth was required to go to Scone Island, Maine to settle an estate. But that task is soon complicated by one, and then another suspicious death. First, a long term resident slips off a cliff. Was he pushed? Then the woman, who found the body, is, in turn, discovered on a foot path dead from an apparent heart attack, but also with a not easily explained head wound. Ruth finds herself briefly cast as a person of interest in the last death. When things seem to be slipping out of hand, Ike arrives just in time to witness the discovery of a third body—Simon Weiss. Weiss had come to the island to purchase properties with an eye to turning it into a high-end resort. His tactics and personality so alienated the residents that it is no surprise his body is found under the community pier, with a very professionally placed bullet hole in his forehead. As his plans were allegedly financed by the New York mafia, it seems obvious who ordered the hit. This brings the FBI into play, to the distress of the local police. With an array of suspects, motives, and even the island’s history to confound the investigation, Ike, with the aid of local Deputy Sheriff, Tom Stone, and the able, if quirky, assistance of Ruth, unravel these three deaths, but not without heavy costs to villains, residents, and their children.ReviewPraise for Frederick Ramsay's Stranger Room:''Ramsay skillfully weaves historical fact into his story, all the while blending brisk action with excellent characterization. Schwartz has matured throughout the series, and readers will eagerly await his next adventure.'' --Publishers WeeklyAbout the AuthorFREDERICK RAMSAY was born in Baltimore, MD, graduated from Washington and Lee University and received his doctorate from the University of Illinois. After a stint in the Army, he joined the University of Maryland, School of Medicine faculty. In 1971 was ordained an Episcopal priest and served in several parishes until retirement. He currently lives in Surprise, Arizona, with his wife and partner, Susan. He writes the 'Ike Schwartz Mysteries', along with a series set in Botswana, and he has two stand alones.
Read online