A city that never sleeps needs a detective with insomnia…

The information age didn’t make private detection obsolete, but it did make things…complicated. The ability to find almost anything on anyone means that the only detectives who stay in business are the ones who can sort the signal from the noise, and that takes a particular kind of mental illness, such as the one that plagues the brain Clarke Lantham.

An old-school pulp hero with a knack for getting mugged by realities that used to be mere science fiction, Clarke Lantham lives in a world of information overload, genetic engineering, designer drugs, ubiquitous surveillance, suburban S&M, cell phones, social networking, and ex-girlfriends.

In its fourth volume of a planned twelve, The Clarke Lantham Mysteries have already garnered rave reviews from View From Valhalla, Gail Carriger, Seth Harwood, and Philippa Ballantine. This hard-boiled, fast-paced, humor-filled (and, apparently, ever-expanding) series of suspense novels update a classic genre updated for a new millennium. Leavened with humor and spiked with irony, these tales of intrigue will leave you laughing, breathless, and dying for more.

Disgraced former cop Clarke Lantham doesn’t mind making his living as a PI. He doesn’t mind the long hours, living in his office, or even dealing with bill collectors, because it keeps him in the city, as close to heaven as he’s ever likely to get.

Fortunately, the world needs private detectives. Unfortunately for Lantham, on this particular Saturday morning, “the world” consists of a fretful mother with a missing daughter, and the place he has to go to look for her has a name every bit as ominous as hell: Suburbia.

With only a teenager’s diaries to go on, and time running out, Lantham chases puzzle pieces from the posh shadow of Mount Diablo to the kink clubs of San Francisco to the genetic engineering labs of Stanford. Tailed by mercenaries, framed for murder, forced into hiding, he somehow must keep keep his head in the face of a world where the normal rules of reality don’t seem to apply, all for the sake of a nineteen-year-old girl whose face he sees every time he closes his eyes.

Read a sample here.
 

It’s hard to beat being thrown in an out-of-state jail on a trumped up charge as a Christmas present, but detective Clarke Lantham loves a challenge. So when he calls up his brother for help with bail, he thinks he’s prepared for the ordeal of spending a holiday weekend with relatives who put the “strange” back in “estranged.”

That was his first mistake. Unfortunately, with an old client gumming up the works, a ten-year-old neice with a ghost problem, and the occasional murder competing for his attention, it’s unlikely to be his last.

Read a sample here.
 

Clarke Lantham has a checkered relationship with holidays, and this New Year’s Eve is no different. His space is cramped, his personal life is on the skids, and his business is once again under assault from lawyers and bill collectors.

But it’s not all bad. The year from hell is ending tonight, and he has his office to himself, so when an old girlfriend shows up with a chance for a $50,000 reward and a New Year’s Eve reconciliation, he jumps at it. After all, things can only get better, right?

Yeah, right.

Read a sample here.
 

A detective with insomnia chases every cop’s worst nightmare…

When a security guard disappears with a priceless Martian meteorite belonging to the Chinese government, and surveillance tapes show a commando team of gray aliens making the snatch, a surly security chief turns to the only agency that might take him seriously: Clarke Lantham Investigations.

After turning down another alien-hunting case earlier this week, Clarke Lantham wants nothing more to do with kooks, cranks, and crooks of any kind. But with a lawsuit, an assistant, and a new ward all chewing through his finances, he needs the paycheck.

Racing spies, assassins, insurance agents, and the FBI, Lantham must find the wandering watchman–and the treasure that went with him–before the theft escalates into a diplomatic flash point between the world’s fearsome superpowers and the alien overlords they allegedly support.

But even that might not bother Lantham…if he didn’t have to sleep on the couch.

Read the first couple chapters here. Then read the rest on your Kindle or Nook, or other e-reader.