Bøger udgivet af Jean Heller Stephens

In Jean Heller's first Deuce Mora mystery, the scrappy female sleuth tangled with the mob; this time out she's on the wrong side of the NSA, the FBI and the CIA. At a minimum. Fans of hard-boiled female protagonists should hang onto their fedoras--this one's an action-packed extravaganza! The grisly discovery of a human bone while Deuce is out for a hike with handsome arson investigator Mark Hearst, leads to the unearthing of a vast burial field, a human trafficking ring, and international intrigue. The pulls-no-punches columnist-- and meticulous detective-- keeps turning up information, bit by bit, only to find some Fed in her face, at her door, emerging from the shadows, always guarding the edges of the story, insisting it will not be told. Yes, the Feds are aware of the trafficking ring; yes they have a plan to move on it; no, Deuce can't be told about the plan; and under no circumstances can she write about its existence. This is the story of a lifetime--bigger than the Vinnie Colangelo story, which earned Deuce and the Journal a Pulitzer, and, for once, she has the support of her editor, but the Journal's lawyer appears daily bringing warnings about "national security." What, Deuce seethes, could be a greater matter of national security than the safety of the city's children who are being kidnapped and murdered? And this story has become very personal for Deuce, as she herself admits, lamenting her loss of objectivity. The hard-hitting journalist has fallen hard for a new guy: a savvy and charming eight-year-old boy named Charles with the face of an angel and the possibility of a bright future, but at great risk due to a life in foster care. Already the street-smart kid has revealed a depth of knowledge about the failures of DCFS and the machinery meant to protect him. For Deuce, every child reported missing and every new body discovered in the hunting ground has Charles's face. But while she's racing to break the case wide open, her life and her career are threatened on all sides; she has to wonder where - or if - the Feds will stop to contain the horrific truth. But break wide open it does, racing to an outrageous surprise ending that seems shockingly ... plausible, and Deuce learns first-hand the lesson that sometimes the only way to accomplish a great good is to commit unthinkable evil, and then learn to live with the consequences. Author Heller does a masterful job of expanding the story--and her canvas--from a simple murder mystery to an ever-widening crime thriller, and finally to an international conspiracy.

It's already been a rough year for the Chicago Journal's first-rate journalistic sleuth, Deuce Mora. After two agonizing investigations - one of which won her a Pulitzer Prize, the other of which forced her to kill a man - she claims she's sworn off action-packed chases that cause nightmares. Still…from the moment she hears the earliest details of the first fire, her detective-instincts say the pieces don't fit, and every other instinct tells the hard-hitting reporter she can't walk away from the story - even though she knows she'll regret it. As a series of deadly fires destroys landmarks first, then occupied structures, the body count rises by scores and the city is gripped by terror at Christmastime, adding lost revenue to property damage in the hundreds of millions. Whole blocks of Chicago real estate are falling to an arsonist, but no one knows why and everyone suspects the worst-terrorism. After the initial tip from the lead arson investigator (aka her boyfriend), Deuce is on her own to solve the mystery. Their relationship could endanger his reputation and his job if he's even suspected of leaking information to her, so they've called a temporary halt. But she's not exactly lacking for company - her old adversary, FBI agent Colter, has a tail on her, and Colter himself keeps popping out of the shadows. His presence at the crime scene and, even more revealingly, that of an NSA agent point to the suspicion of jihadist terrorism. But no terrorist group has claimed the mayhem.

Deuce Mora's one tough cookie--a female sleuth with a conscience and an attitude--fiery, tough, athletic, a dirty fighter when she has to be. In Jean Heller's first mystery featuring the scrappy newspaper columnist, Deuce finds out in short order that if you mess with organized crime, you have to be tough-and you'd better be as much detective as reporter. When she walks into a seedy neighborhood bar in a suburb of Chicago--all six feet of her, topped with auburn curls-she's searching for a human-interest story. What she finds is Vinnie Colangelo, an aging mobster living on bad beer, cheap bourbon and regret for the life he wasted. Vinnie hints at secrets much bigger than his rap sheet should entitle him to, and Deuce immediately discovers that somebody's willing to kill to keep those secrets buried. She uncovers a series of crimes committed over nearly six decades, and, as her human interest story morphs into a hard-boiled, action-packed mystery, she finds herself dead center in a storm of threats and reprisals from the mob.It's not enough that the mob's after her, and corrupt government is concealing the evidence that would explain why; even her own editors, frightened of lawsuits and losing subscribers, want her off the story.Fortunately, she has many allies: a network of loyal co-workers and contacts, even an ardent new admirer. But which ones can she trust? At least one of them, she suspects, is hiding a secret-- corruption? Murder? The veteran reporter knows: if you're talking Chicago crime scene-it's probably both.