by Jeffery Deaver (2002)
Lincoln and Amelia are recruited to track down a cargo ship carrying two dozen illegal Chinese immigrants, as well as the notorious human smuggler and killer known as the Ghost. But when the capture goes disastrously wrong, Lincoln and Amelia find themselves in a race to stop the Ghost before he can track down and murder the two surviving families who have vanished deep into the labyrinthine world of New York City's Chinese community. Over the next forty-eight hours the Ghost ruthlessly hunts for the families while Rhyme, aided by a policeman from mainland China, struggles to find them before they die and Sachs pursues a very different kind of policework - forming a connection with one of the immigrants that may have consequences going to the core of her relationship with her partner and lover, Lincoln Rhyme.
Lawrence Block
Matthew Scudder Crime Novel #10. "When Lawrence Block is in his Matthew Scudder mode, crime fiction can sidle up so close to literature that often there's no degree of difference" (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
Tom Turner
Burned out New York homicide cop Charlie Crawford goes south to take it slow. But after six months in steamy Palm Beach, Florida, he's bored out of his mind and desperate for a face-down stiff with a little rigor setting in. One Halloween night, Crawford is first on the scene and finds a twenty-year-old male swinging from a stately banyan tree. This sets in motion colliding plots involving a billionaire with a thing for young girls, a far-reaching art scam with Crawford's girlfriend playing a starring role, and a ruthless hustler passing himself off as the long lost son of one of the richest men in town.
Joanie McDonell
Despite his bronze star, Nick Sayler was once a thief, junkie, and prime suspect in a murder case. Now he's a private investigator with a long list of rich clients and a good life ... but there's not enough whiskey in the world to wash away acid-etched memories of Julia Carteret, the beautiful woman who took a bullet meant for him. When a dancer with no money, no memory, and nothing in her pocket except Sayler's card-- and the number 44 carved across her back-- shows up in the ER, Sayler thinks keeping her safe could put him back on the road to redemption.
Elmore Leonard
Father Terry Dunn thought he'd seen everything on the mean streets of Detroit, but that was before he went on a little retreat to Rwanda to evade a tax-fraud indictment. Now the whiskey-drinking, Nine Inch Nails T-shirt-wearing padre is back trying to hustle up a score to help the little orphans of Rwanda. But the fund-raising gets complicated when a former tattletale cohort pops up on Terry's tail. And then there's the lovely Debbie Dewey. A freshly sprung ex-con turned stand-up comic, Debbie needs some fast cash, too, to settle an old score. Now they're in together for a bigger payoff than either could finagle alone. After all, it makes sense ... unless Father Terry is working a con of his own.