When gang warfare claims his cousin, Detective Wager seeks justice There was a time in Denver when a child’s murder was a tragedy, but now that gangs have taken hold of the city, teenage deaths are sickeningly routine. As far as homicide detective Gabriel Wager can tell, the latest victim, a thir...
Devlin investigates a missing Salvadoran’s gruesome fateDevlin Kirk and his partner Bunchcroft are Denver’s finest industrial security experts, even if Denver doesn’t see it that way. Their last big case got them out of debt, but since then the well has been dry. Their firm is teetering on the ed...
Kirk watches nervously as a new employee goes undercover with a drug ringThe employees at the Advantage Company have started to steal. They are angrier than they used to be, and also clumsier—accident reports have spiked. To Devlin Kirk, these are telltale signs of on-the-job drug abuse. Hired by...
A botched coke bust forces Wager to go undercover for the first time in yearsFor six months, the Denver narcotics team and the DEA have built a case against a cocaine-dealing heavy named Farnsworth. When Detective Reitman makes the final buy, he runs a field test to make sure the package of powde...
An unidentified body points Wager to a radical religious sectA year ago, homicide detective Gabe Wager had a man killed. Though Wager feels no guilt at doing away with an evil man, his partner, Max Axton, is disgusted, and has hardly spoken to him for a year. Now Wager and Axton have to work toge...
Now working homicide, Wager lands a gruesome case in the botanic garden Homicide cops are always suspicious of the drug enforcement division, so when ex-narcotics detective Gabe Wager arrives on the murder squad, his first assignment is the graveyard shift. His new commanding officer hopes that t...
I enjoy books set in the American West and in Colorado in particular. This book is by a Colorado Author and takes place in Colorado.Gabe Wager, a Denver Cop, is brought in to assist in the investigation of a series of murders in the four corners area of Colorado. Turns out the people were killed ...
Wager hunts for the killer of a black councilman, as the city threatens to riotGabe’s girlfriend Jo is drowning. She stares up at him, eyes wide with terror, as he fights to grab her hand. In a moment, the frothing river swallows her up, and Jo is gone. Nine months have passed since Jo’s death, a...
A tip about a murdered mob boss forces Gabe Wager to reopen a cold caseA year ago, Marco Scorvelli was murdered while picking up his morning paper. A sawed-off shotgun put a hole in his stomach, and streaked the inside of his sports coat with the mob boss’s innards. As Scorvelli crawled towards h...
On his way home, Wager had heard the dispatcher call patrol units to half a dozen outbreaks of civil disturbance. Most of them were in the northeast quadrant, but even as he finally flicked off the monitor and closed his burning eyes against the room’s darkness, he heard the locations shift towar...
By then, it was almost eleven at night and too late to call. All the books on “How to Be a Detective” offered techniques for the care and handling of interviewees, and ringing a telephone so late in the evening was not highly recommended. She transferred lines at Oxford Ci...
But I was terrified. It was no accident—it was deliberate!” Margaret’s voice still had the tense, quivering note of fear and anger that verged on tears. “Are you all right? The children?” “Yes, we’re all fine, thank God. We had our seatbelts on, and Austin and Shauna were in the back seat. I stil...
Wager arrived in Denver just in time to take her to lunch at My Brother’s Bar, just up I-25 from Mile-Hi Stadium—Bears’ Stadium it was called before professional football caught on. The tavern was run by a quietly smiling Greek, and the music was classical stuff, which Wager liked because it was ...
“All girls go through a horsy stage, Gabe. Haven’t you ever heard of My Friend Flicka?” “Is that like Lassie Come Home?” “Only if you’ve got a small horse or a big dog. I used to barrel race—Daddy bought a quarter horse for me named Doodles. She was quick—good speed and turning. But a lot of girl...
He had been unable to get back to sleep until, feeling the chill of early morning, he had added the bedspread to the layer of blankets. Despite its smell of chemicals and heavy ironing, he had finally drifted into an uneasy rest. The first thing after prying himself out of bed was to look through...
The Bulldog listened to Mallory’s report without once removing his cigar to play with it. When the agent finished, the chief slowly placed the dead stogie in his oversize ashtray and muttered, “God, Jesus.” Then he started punching buttons on his telephone console. By midafternoon, McGonagle was ...
The first meeting was arranged for the following afternoon. “You’re sure this sergeant’s legitimate, Gabe?” “It’s my ass, too, if it doesn’t work, Dick. You look him over and see if he doesn’t look like every sergeant you’ve ever met.” “I never met any. But we’ll talk to him and see how things so...
She recognized him and Axton for cops and scarcely glanced at their badges; her nod at their request was only confirmation of what she already knew. “The other officers couldn’t get much out of him, and he may still be sedated. Would you register here, please?” Wager signed his and Axton’s names ...