Bøger af Richard W Houston

Some secrets should stay buried. That's nearly impossible when a Golden Retriever named Fred, with a knack for digging up the truth, shows up with his owner to investigate an accidental drowning. When Jake realizes the drowning is no accident, his new girlfriend starts avoiding him. She's a sheriff deputy and says she doesn't want or need his help, but could she have another motive for keeping him quiet?

Outsourced software engineer Jacob Martin is trying to make the best of a divorce and mid-life crisis when he gets a call at two o'clock Sunday morning from his mother. His sister has been arrested for murder, and his father is near death. Thus begins an adventure that takes Jake and his golden retriever from their Colorado retreat to a backwater town in the Missouri Ozarks where he gets on the wrong side of a sheriff deputy after hiring a crafty lawyer who gets Megan released on a technicality over a suicide note. Then, just as Jake is ready to go back home, she drops a bombshell with a story straight from a Louis L'Amour novel. Protagonist Jake Martin (nickname Porky) is a McDonalds regular who gets by on odd jobs, drinks an enormous amount of beer, and suffers from a shrinking bladder and failing eyesight. He's generous, well-mannered, an aspiring novelist, and obviously smart--not exactly the hard-boiled sleuth one might expect in a mystery. He does not work alone. Always with him is Fred, his beloved golden retriever, the smartest dog since Lassie, who serves as a sort of assistant detective, early warning system, clue-finder, and ice-breaker. In the course of his investigation Jake is stalked, run off the road, hospitalized, and loses his vehicle, money, and Visa card. The murder motive is connected with the Jesse James lost fortune myth. His investigative techniques include surveillance camera sabotage, illegal entry, computer hacking, and violation of federal laws concerning personal privacy. Jake's job is to put together all the pieces. The writing is humorous and proficient, the relationships well-defined and enjoyable. The mystery itself is illusive until the very end, and so it is hard to put down for any length of time.

There is a treasure high in the Colorado Rockies waiting for someone to find it. Jake Martin couldn't care less. Since the death of his wife, all Jake wants is to be left alone in his mountain cabin where he and his dog, Fred, can get on with life. But when it becomes known that the location of the treasure is encrypted in a message left by a 19th century miner, people begin to die, and Jake's good friend and neighbor becomes the number one suspect.The old miner used a copy of Tom Sawyer as a key to his coded message, and the real murderer wants that edition so bad, he's willing to kill for it. Can the amateur sleuths decode the message and stop the murderer, or have Jake and Fred finally met their match?