Books by William D. Montalbano

Vatican City, the dawn of a new century: a lone priest trudges up the winding stairs to the top of St. Peter's Basilica, only to be helped to a sudden and permanent route down. With this death, an ever-more complex chain of events is set in motion in a new kind of thriller: a story of Vatican politics and obsessional revenge, of violence both spiritual and physical, of two men shaped and scarred by a common stormy past. One is the new Pope, nicknamed Tredi, the first from Latin America, a young, audacious risk-taker ready to shake up the old guard, even if it means making dangerous enemies. The other is Brother Paul, a former Miami homicide cop, still recovering from the horrific deaths of his family and brought to Rome as an informal investigator for the Pope, a Vatican Mr. Fixit drifting unsteadily in the shadows of the giant church. When the priest dies in the Basilica, it is Paul who is asked to find out what it means, and soon his days are torn between new alliances and old enmities, as the threats multiply, the ghosts of the past stalking the ancient streets of Rome, circling in upon both Paul and Tredi. In a multilayered surprising thriller, filled with mystery both religious and corporeal, they find that it is not so easy to change an institution, just as it is not so easy to change a life. Though a life is easy to lose...

An American investigating his mentors murder finds himself ensnared in a web of lies and treachery in China, where even tomorrow's weather is a state secret. From a nightmarish interrogation to assassination by cobra, A Death in China takes readers on a trip with no rest stops through a world of claustrophobic mistrust and terrifying danger.

Architect Chris Meadows has the bad luck to see an old girlfriend get hit by a car full of drugland hitmen. He has the worse luck to see the face of her murderers. Because in a town as violent as Miami, a witness doesn't stand a chance--especially when the cops who ought to be protecting him are more interested in dangling him as live bait.

Tired, middle-aged boat captain Breeze Albury is forced to accept a run for Key West's drug cartel, a run that leads to betrayal, blackmail, death, and--for Breeze--a cunning retribution.

Key West is a smugglers paradise. All thats needed are the captains to run the contraband and Breeze Albury is one of the best fishing captains on the Rock. Hes in no mood to become the Machines delivery boy, however. So the Machine sets out to persuade him. It starts by taking away Alburys livelihood and his freedom. But when the Machine threatens Albury's son, the washed-out wharf rat turns into a raging, sea-going vigilante.