Search Results: Archer Mayor from I Cannot Live Without Books

Bellows Falls (Joe Gunther Series, Book #8) by Archer Mayor
A routine call asking Joe Gunther to investigate a seemingly minor complaint against a young officer of the Bellows Falls police department leads to the uncovering of a cauldron of spousal abuse, debauchery, teen crime, drug running, and cold-blooded murder. Joe must travel the length of Vermont, from the beleaguered town of Bellows Falls, to the big city of Burlington, and the cold waters of Lake Champlain beside it.
AM Press, Softcover, 2007

Bomber's Moon (Joe Gunther Series, Book #30) by Archer Mayor
A bright and clear bomber's moon is ideal for finding one's target. But beware: What you can see at night can also see you. Often with dire consequences. Two young women. One, Rachel Reiling, an investigative reporter, the other, Sally Kravitz, a private investigator. Uneasy allies from very different walks of life, they work as a team to connect the murders of a small town drug dealer, a smart, engaging, fatally flawed thief, and the tangled, political, increasingly dark goings on at a prestigious prep school. Joe Gunther and his team of investigators at the VBI -- the Vermont Bureau of Investigation -- are officially assigned to the two homicides. While they set about solving them, Sally Kravitz and Rachel Reiling -- sometimes working with the police, sometimes against -- pool their talents and take advantage of their civilian status to go where the police cannot, from working undercover at Thorndike Academy to having clandestine meetings… Read More

Borderlines (Joe Gunther Series, Book #2) by Archer Mayor
Set entirely in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, an isolated, thinly populated part of the state, Borderlines tells of Joe Gunther's temporary assignment to the local State's Attorney's office, which he has taken on, in part, to get away from Brattleboro, and from his girlfriend, Gail Zigman, with whom he's had a fight. Set in the fictional town of Gannet, the story soon shifts to the discovery of a man's body and the possible involvement of a back-to-nature cult that owns half the real estate in the town. Juggling his own personal problems, jurisdictional disputes with the state police, and escalating animosity between cult members and townies, and a growing number of homicides, Joe moves as fast as he can before events reach a critical mass and overwhelm him.
AM Press, Softcover, 2007

Bury the Lead (Joe Gunther Series, Book #29) by Archer Mayor
Joe Gunther and the VBI team are investigating a murder and an arson case -- both potentially related to a small but lethal outbreak of Ebola at a local hospital. When the body of a young woman is found near a trail at a popular ski mountain, the case falls to Joe Gunther and his team at the Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI). They quickly have a suspect, Mick Durocher, and a confession, but not everyone on the team is convinced of Mick's truthfulness. Despite his ready admission, investigators quickly sense there might be more going on than is immediately apparent.
At the same time, a large local business is being targeted with escalating acts of violence -- a warehouse fire, a booby-rigged truck, an industrial gas leak murderously unleashed. The odd and common denominator? Mick Durocher, the self-confessed murderer, was once employed by the same company. These two puzzling cases, only tenuously connected, are further complicated by the… Read More

The Dark Root (Joe Gunther Series, Book #6) by Archer Mayor
A brutal home invasion by Asian gang members against a prominent Brattleboro Asian family sets Joe Gunther on the trail of an underground railroad running through Vermont from Canad to Boston, New York, and other U.S. urban centers, carrying drugs, illegal aliens, and other contraband. But why the sudden outbreak of violence in what has been a quietly running operation for years? To uncover the culprits amid a vicious turf battle between rival gangs, Joe enlists the help of the FBI, the Border Patrol, and the Canadian Mounties in a chase that takes him right to the heart of Montreal's Chinatown.
AM Press, Softcover, 1995

The Disposable Man (Joe Gunther Series, Book #9) by Archer Mayor
An unidentified man is found face down in an abandoned quarry, strangled with a piano wire. The labels have been cut from his clothes, his facial features are Slavic in appearance, and his toes are tattooed with Russian letters. When no one reports any missing persons, and no police agency responds to a fingerprint check, it looks like a dead end for Joe Gunther and his team. But then why are the FBI and the CIA showing such an interest? Searching for the truth draws Joe into a paranoid twilight battle zone where the blood of old cold war combatants runs lethally hot over old disputes. Ruthlessly manipulated by unseen forces, Gunther is pitted against the legal system he has always worked to uphold, and before he knows it, ends up framed for a crime he didn't commit, estranged from his colleagues, and fighting for freedom, vindication, and his own life.
AM Press, Softcover, 2007

Fruits of the Poisonous Tree (Joe Gunther Series, Book #5) by Archer Mayor
Joe Gunther's girlfriend, Gail Zigman, is raped, causing consternation and great pain, not just to the two of them, and a media frenzy due to her political prominence, his involvement win the case, and her refusal to hide behind a shroud of anonymity. Instead, while Joe and his colleagues narrow in on the identity of her attacker, Gail is leading candlelight parades down Main Street, bringing attention to the true character of rape. But is the man the police nail for the crime the right one? Risking his friendship with Gail, the respect of his peers, and finally his own life, Joe doggedly keeps digging, hoping to find out if the man they have in jail is rightfully there, or if the evidence against him was "fruit of the poisonous tree."
AM Press, Softcover, 2007

Gatekeeper (Joe Gunther Series, Book #14) by Archer Mayor
A known drug dealer is found hanging from a railroad trestle in Rutland, the daughter of a political bigwig is dead of an overdose in the man's apartment, and a young woman (Gail Zigman's niece) is shot while trying to rob a convenience store for drug money. Heroin is hitting Vermont in unprecedented quantities. Vermont Bureau of Investigation special agent Joe Gunther (and Zigman's long-time partner) is called upon by the governor to put his agency's talents to work staunching this flood. Unfortunately for Joe, headstrong colleague Sammie Martens takes the initiative and goes undercover in Holyoke, Massachusetts, before a more organized operation can be put in place. Does Joe pull her out or take advantage of this lucky but very risky break? Is Sammie fully prepared for what she's about to encounter? Meanwhile Gail Zigman, stunned by her niece's plight, heads off on her own to discover what led to this tragedy.
AM Press, Softcover, 2010

The Marble Mask (Joe Gunther Series, Book #11) by Archer Mayor
The Marble Mask marks the first full-fledged case for the new Vermont Bureau of Investigation, of which Joe Gunther is second-in-command. The story begins with the discovery of a frozen body on the top of Mount Mansfield near Stowe. This is no big news until it is found that the presumed lost hiker actually died fifty years ago and has been artificially frozen ever since. Not only that but he's soon found to have been a French Canadian crime boss from Sherbrooke, Quebec, whose descendants are now on the brink of a major gang war. Why was he killed? Why was he kept frozen? Why has he resurfaced in such a dramatic way so many years later? Joe and his new squad travel between the cultural divide of Canada and Vermont, uncovering -- among other things -- some long-lost secrets dating back to the Italian campaign in WWII and the existence of a combat group nicknamed "The Devil's Brigade."
AM Press, Softcover, 2007

Occam's Razor (Joe Gunther Series, Book #10) by Archer Mayor
A watershed book full of changes in the making, Occam's Razor sets the stage for a radical shift in the Joe Gunther series. Beginning with the discovery of an apparently homeless man's body draped across the railroad tracks in downtown Brattleboro, the story follows Joe and his squad as they investigate an ever-growing group of suspects -- and dead bodies -- from the patrons of a down-and-out Canal Street bar, to some gubernatorial candidates in the state capitol of Montpelier. The story covers one full year, and by its end, not only have the lives of Sammie, Willy, Joe, and Gail been changed, but -- through the enactment of a new state law -- so has law enforcement in Vermont.
AM Press, Softcover, 2007

Open Season (Joe Gunther Series, Book #1) by Archer Mayor
In an explosive moment that shakes the town of Brattleboro, Vermont to its roots, Jamie Phillips creeps up to Thelma Reitz's door in the middle of the night, only to have that frightened old lady blow his head off with a shotgun. Obviously a setup, thinks Joe Gunther, but the crime soon takes on even more shocking dimensions.
First, Gunther discovers that the shooter and the victim were co-jurors on the sensational Harris murder trial three years earlier. Then, several more vicious assaults lead Gunther to suspect that whoever planned Jamie's grisly death won't quit until the Harris affair is reopened, even if it means killing every juror... and the cop on the case.
AM Press, Softcover, 2007

The Ragman's Memory (Joe Gunther Series, Book #7) by Archer Mayor
A small girl brings Joe Gunther a bird's nest -- made partially of human hair. In his search to put a body, and identity, to the hair's owner, Joe comes upon an unexplained death, a grisly murder, a sudden disappearance, and travels the social strata of his hometown from the elite to the homeless, amid a maelstrom of corporate greed, personal betrayal, and blackmail. In the end, Joe discovers the key to this puzzle locked inside the shell-shocked brain of a WWII veteran nicknamed The Ragman, whom he must get to talk before murder strikes again.
AM Press, Softcover, 2007

Scent of Evil (Joe Gunther Series, Book #3) by Archer Mayor
A hand is found sticking out of the dirt at a construction site, and Joe Gunther's detective squad begins research into who the victim was, how he was killed, who might have done it, and why. But before they know it, several more people are dead, including one of the town's biggest drug dealers, and others are implicated in a variety of illegal activities, from members of the ruling elite to one of the police department's very own. Hampered by the worst heat wave in a decade, hobbled by the press and intrusive hometown politics, Gunther figures out that the person behind the crimes is being fueled by revenge for wrongs done long ago.
AM Press, Softcover, 2007

The Skeleton's Knee (Joe Gunther Series, Book #4) by Archer Mayor
A hermit dies in the hospital of a bullet he received twenty years earlier. At his mountaintop home, a skeleton with a bullet hole and a metal knee is found buried in the yard. On the way to the medical examiner's office, the hearse comes under machine gun fire. A long-hidden crime is obviously very much on someone's mind -- someone who would love to destroy what little evidence remains.
The serial number on the metal knee takes Joe Gunther to Chicago, where he is snubbed by the big city cops, and confronted with some ancient and bloody history. When he returns to Vermont with newly discovered evidence, he's no longer alone. He's picked up a shadowy presence as eager as himself to unmask the person who buried the skeleton with the metal knee.
AM Press, Softcover, 2007

The Sniper's Wife (Joe Gunther Series, Book #13) by Archer Mayor
A phone call from New York City pulls Detective Willy Kunkle away from the relative refuge of Vermont -- back to his rarely acknowledged past in the city, his prior life of turmoil and conflict, and to the dead body of his ex-wife, Mary. She's been found, alone and abandoned in her rundown apartment, an apparent drug overdose, and Willy is the only person a disinterested NYPD can find to vouch for her remains.
Driven by loss and guilt, assailed by memories of a rough childhood and a poor performance as a mate, Willy struggles through his grief using his twin talents as an investigator and a combat sniper to recognize what others have missed: Mary's death was no accident.
From fire-gutted tenements to Brooklyn Heights townhouses, Willy Kunkle travels through old shadows, wrestling with familiar, menacing demons, and risks all to reach for grace.
AM PRESS, SOFTCOVER, 2007

The Surrogate Thief (Joe Gunther Series, Book #15) by Archer Mayor
Compelling plots and a vivid New England canvas are the mainstays of Archer Mayor's acclaimed mysteries. In this novel that won the New England Book Award for Fiction, Mayor's popular Vermont sleuth, Joe Gunther, returns to pursue his most elusive nemesis to date.
Brattleboro is your typical scenic Vermont town. Homes are quaint and streets are leafy. Yet there is also a darkness here, as veteran cop Joe Gunther knows all too well. After years of tackling drug pushers, corporate swindlers, and environmental conspirators, Gunther faces a new danger when a cold case is suddenly reopened. Three decades earlier, a storeowner was brutally killed, and Gunther, distracted by his wife's battle with cancer, had let the investigation die. Now torn between righting past wrongs and wrestling his demons, Gunther must confront the most perilous case of his life. For stalking the idyllic Brattleboro streets is a long-lost murderer who never quite… Read More

Tucker Peak (Joe Gunther Series, Book #12) by Archer Mayor
Joe Gunther's brand new Vermont Bureau of Investigation team is invited by a local sheriff to look into a seemingly mundane series of burglaries at the Tucker Peak ski resort. The sheriff has his hands full, since the resort management is undergoing a massive facelift and environmental protesters are picketing the place against the increased use of pond water for snowmaking. Before long, however, the VBI's honed talents for major investigations are called into action as one of the presumed thieves goes missing, and his girlfriend is found brutally murdered. Questions soon abound, and their answers appear to lurk beneath the festive and artificial veneer of a shoddy ski resort in desperate straits, and the self-righteous posturing of some of those opposing it.AM Press, Softcover, 2007