A Perfect Wife and Mother

A Perfect Wife and Mother

Peter Israel

Peter Israel

Suburban calm is shattered when a mother's worst nightmare comes true She is twenty-one, gorgeous, and well mannered. She speaks English, she loves children, and children love her. Harriet Major is the perfect babysitter—almost too good to be true. Georgia Coffey has been searching for someone like Harriet ever since becoming pregnant with her second child. But in the sprawling suburbs of New York City, where the many bankers' wives need a nanny for every baby, good help is hard to find. With her husband hard at work on Wall Street and a new child only two months away, Georgia is desperate to find someone to watch little Justin—and Harriet knows how to take advantage of a desperate mother. When the babysitter disappears with Justin, Georgia feels her world coming apart at the seams. As the search for her child becomes frantic, she discovers that the kidnapping has its roots on the same big-name street where her husband has made his fortune.
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If I Should Die Before I Die

If I Should Die Before I Die

Peter Israel

Peter Israel

To save his boss's wife, a clever lawyer must unmask a silent serial killer Another woman has died, just like all the others who have been targeted by the so-called pillow killer—her life snuffed out without a sound. He smothers each of them carefully, and they seem to go without struggle, as though the killer were their friend. As each new body is discovered, the women of New York come closer and closer to outright panic. Finally, one of them is about to fight back. Philip Revere is a few blocks away from his office, the stately brownstone of brilliant attorney Charles Camelot, when he sees his boss's wife sobbing outside Central Park. A sex therapist, Nora is convinced that one of her clients is the pillow killer, and she has begun to fear for her life. With Revere's help, she will do whatever it takes to put the culprit behind bars.
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Hush Money

Hush Money

Peter Israel

Peter Israel

Hired to kill a sensational story, a modern-day shamus discovers a murder The rumors start flying almost as soon as Karen Beydon leaps out her window. The newspapers provide myriad theories as to what led this beautiful heiress to hurl herself out of a seventh-floor dorm room, suggesting everything from drug addiction and murder to depression over a love affair gone sour. The tawdry details of Karen's sad last days sell plenty of papers but do nothing to console her family. And when a California millionaire wants the press muzzled, he hires B. F. Cage. Although his business card says public relations, Cage is a tough-talking private investigator in the classic mold. Before he can put Karen's story to bed, he needs to know what really happened that day in her dorm, and finding the answer will lead him into a side of the California underworld he never believed existed.
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The Stark Truth

The Stark Truth

Peter Israel

Peter Israel

In 1980s New York, a ruthless couple rockets up the corporate ladder Tommy is waiting in the bushes when the woman comes home crying. He unlocks the door and pads through the darkened house as he has done so many times in the past. He finds her upstairs in her nightgown, half asleep but not surprised to see him—until he pulls out the gun. She is not afraid. She dares him to shoot. It would not be the first time she has convinced him to commit a crime. Tommy met Kitty Goldmark at Tavern on the Green, at a company holiday party for New York's least scrupulous millionaires. Recently divorced and professionally adrift, Tommy could not help but be seduced by this gorgeous young widow. She brought him into a world of erotic passion, paid for by the sort of crime found only on Wall Street.
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The Stiff Upper Lip

The Stiff Upper Lip

Peter Israel

Peter Israel

A private investigator risks his life for the sake of a French basketball player Sometimes B. F. Cage can't remember what he's doing in Paris. He had a successful business in California doing dirty work for people who could afford to keep their hands clean, but the French don't seem to need his particular skills. When his nearly empty wallet is stolen, he pities the thief who took it. When the robber comes back, Cage knows he is in trouble. Her name is Val Merchadier, and she wants a job. To show him what she's capable of, she easily locates the missing millionaire whom Cage has been tracking for weeks. She finds him—and then lets him go while pointing a pistol at B.F.'s chest. Miss Merchadier has bigger fish to fry than helping a down-and-out investigator. She's in love with that rarest of creatures—a French professional basketball player—and hires Cage to protect her beau from those who want him dead, drawing him into a web of drug...
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I'll Cry When I Kill You

I'll Cry When I Kill You

Peter Israel

Peter Israel

An attorney tries to protect a science fiction writer from a galaxy of would-be killers Thirty minutes north of Central Park, Philip Revere finds himself in a world of spacious lawns, jogging suits, and extreme, unabashed wealth. He has come to confer with Raul Bashard, a titan of science fiction whose imminent death has been rumored for years. Revere represents Bashard's lawyer, Charles Camelot, an all-powerful attorney better known as the Counselor. Revere expects this to be nothing more than an errand—a contract dispute or a question of royalties—but Bashard has something deadly on his mind. After decades of being menaced by fans, Bashard has attracted the attention of a far more determined adversary: the Internal Revenue Service. Its attention has become so acute that the author has begun to fear for his life. Revere writes this off as artistic paranoia, but when Bashard is beaten to death in his sleep, the affair becomes a case only Camelot...
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The French Kiss

The French Kiss

Peter Israel

Peter Israel

In the fast-paced Paris art world, a forger has come home to roost In a lavish Parisian gallery, a painting waits behind a velvet curtain. The room is full of the most interesting people in the city, from diplomats and spies to fishmongers and thieves, but the man of the hour has not yet appeared. Al Dove never makes an early entrance. Finally, he swoops in to applause, his nut-brown California tan standing out in the sea of pale Parisian skin, and prepares for his moment in the spotlight. He unveils the painting, an ultrarare masterpiece from an enigmatic painter, and the room goes quiet. And then from the back, someone screams a horrible word: "Fake!" The room erupts into a riot, which Dove escapes only with the help of B. F. Cage, a tough-guy friend from the days when Al's last name was still Dovici. There is a counterfeiter at large in Paris, and finding him will draw Cage into a shadowy world of drugs, smuggling, and million-dollar murder.
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