To keep his wife in furs, a smuggler sneaks a painting across the Spanish frontier. It is 1948, and few in Belgium live comfortably enough to haggle over payment - particularly those who make their living outside the law. Kek Huuygens is an exception. As far as his wife knows, this dapper gentleman is an art appraiser who moves in the finest circles. But although Kek knows all there is to know about art, he does not appraise it. He moves it - from...

A small-town sheriff investigates a bizarre disappearance Nobody could blame Charley Crompton for wanting to kill his wife. For years she's made his life hell, but poor old Charley has always been too meek to stand up for himself. One night they have a terrible fight, loud enough for Mrs. Williams next door to hear every word, and the argument is followed by eerie silence. The next thing Mrs. Williams knows, Charley is digging up the peach tree in...

Captain José Da Silva has the daunting task of finding a murderer. Hired by the Brazilian Foreign Office, Da Silva sets out to end these jungle killings, but doesn't quite have all the facts. When Agent Wilson shows him one of the victims--not all of him, just his shrunken head--Da Silva realizes that this murder case isn't as open-and-shut as it seems. Now he must investigate, evading the powerful magic and numerous mysteries of the Amazon jungle....

On a transatlantic cruise, three elderly gentlemen have the adventure of a lifetime When the captain of the SS Sunderland sees the three grey-haired passengers, he does not expect them to cause any trouble. He is mistaken. If he knew how much trouble they will cause, he'd likely leap over the railing and swim for shore. Carruthers, Simpson, and Briggs are three of the most dangerous men in the world. Founders of the British Mystery Writers Club,...

At an international summit, Da Silva searches for an assassin Off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, a freighter battles the waves. The steward has been stricken with appendicitis, but the sea is too rough for the ship to dock. A coast guard helicopter brings him to shore, where he is put in an ambulance and rushed the hospital. But when the ambulance arrives, the patient has disappeared. He was never sick, and he is not a sailor. He is an assassin, and...

A search for an American's missing brother draws Da Silva into the jungle In a blighted stretch of the Amazon, three men have come to blow up a bridge. Just before they complete their mission, one of them turns on the others, gunning one down and burying the other with the force of the explosion. He is stepping into his getaway plane when he notices that the first man's body is gone. It doesn't matter, he thinks. An injured man could not last a day...

In the roughest precinct in New York, one cop tries to hold back the flood of crime It's a lovely autumn in the Big Apple, and the weather is perfect for trouble. Over the weekend, a teenage gang rumbled on the playground, leaving a fifteen year-old stabbed and a younger boy beaten half to death; a high-speed chase left one dead and two badly injured; and a fire in a tenement killed two-and the police found the arsonist standing outside, relishing...

To stop a crime wave, a San Francisco cop investigates a ring of smugglers Homicide lieutenant James Reardon is raising a martini to his lips when the call comes in from headquarters. He is late for a meeting and the chief is furious. The cocktail, and Reardon's girlfriend, will have to wait. The meeting is a waste of time-a federal agent repeating platitudes about the dangers of drug smuggling-and Reardon is grateful when a call comes in on the radio,...

To repay a wartime debt, a master smuggler ventures out into the open. The customs agent's eyes go wide when he reads the passport. It is Kek Huuygens, the notorious smuggler who has grown rich making border guards look like fools. Today he is returning from Switzerland, a box of chocolates packed in his briefcase. The guard confiscates the chocolates, which he is certain must contain diamonds, but he lets Huuygens keep the wrapper as proof of his...

A quartet of killings threaten to derail Lieutenant James Reardon's relationship-and end his life Jan has been dating James Reardon long enough to know that she wants to be with him forever, but she will not marry him as long as he's a cop. She has spent too many nights lying awake, afraid that this will be the case that gets him killed, and she cannot make that her whole life. But she and Reardon both know that death is the only thing that could...