THE MIDDLE SISTER
Jack Salvo teaches philosophy one night a week at a local community college, but he pays his bills by working as a Los Angeles private detective.
A wealthy woman hires him to find her wayward daughter Lillie, who has been missing for a week. Salvo figures the girl is probably hiding out with her friends. All he has to do is interview the friends, bust their stories, and deduce the missing brat’s location. Salvo soon learns that her “friends” are somewhat parasitical. When he finds Lillie, she is hosting different kinds of parasites — the little ones that help rid the world of rotting corpses. Salvo is then pulled into a maze of murder, arson, and blackmail. During his high-speed run down L.A.’s fast lane, he spars with grifters and gangsters, dodges the cops, and digs up a dark, deadly family secret.
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CHURCH OF SPILLED BLOOD
When a group of world-class Russian ballet dancers visits L.A., Jack signs on as a bodyguard. It’s easy money. All he has to do is hang out with beautiful women. Then one of his charges is kidnapped from under his nose. In pursuing the kidnappers, he evades the FBI, finds bullet-riddled bodies near the Hollywood Sign, and dodges bullets. Drawn into a web of deceit and maniacal revenge, he finds himself in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Now he’s a fish-out-of-water—an L.A. private eye in a strange land. The most popular historical site in town is called The Church of Our Savior Built on Spilled Blood. When Salvo tries to save the life of a ballerina with whom he has developed a close personal relationship, the church lives up to its name.
“Jack Salvo is a wisecracking Los Angeles private investigator. He . . . takes a job guarding a Russian ballerina and two dance students who are in town for a series of classes . . . It looks like an easy job. But one of the girls is kidnapped, and our hero Jack Salvo, of course, has to hunt down the kidnappers. During his investigation, he encounters various interesting characters, some of whom are dead. He also gets quite friendly with Yelena, the Russian ballerina he was guarding. We get a few plot twists that take us on a quick trip to Russia, lots of action, then a surprise ending. The hero Jack Salvo is tough and smart, but not obnoxiously so. The book was a little too short to suit me, but it reminded me of a good movie, and I just had to keep turning the pages.” -LeeZah (Kindle Reviewer)
“The action is non-stop and the characters are fascinating.” — John E. Flatley Jr. (Kindle Reviewer)
“. . . hits it out of the park on all accounts.” — Shay (NetGalley Reviewer)
“. . . reminiscent of Elvis Cole in the books by Robert Crais . . .” — Nicholas (Kindle Reviewer)
“. . . interesting characters . . . written in a style that enhances the presentation of the story.” — Jay (NetGalley Reviewer)
“This is the 2nd book by Jesse Miles that I have read. Having recently been to St. Petersburg, I could visualize exactly where the events took place. I live in the southland and can say the same about his knowledge of the LA landscape.” — Pat D (Kindle Reviewer)
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DEAD DROP
A local aerospace company hires Jack Salvo to investigate a small-time embezzlement. The company assigns a pretty, quick-witted security expert named Lilith Lin to work with him. It’s a piece of cake – a direct route to the embezzler and a client with deep pockets. But another embezzlement and a pair of corpses expand his investigation into a labyrinth of espionage, kidnapping and murder. Jack’s life and Lilith’s are at stake, as are classified secrets that could impact national security.
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THEORY OF JUSTICE, the next book in the Jack Salvo series, is currently in work.
When Jack Salvo was six years old, his father Karl Salvo, a five-year LAPD veteran, was shot and killed during a botched drug store burglary. The murder was never solved, and no evidence was left behind, except for the bullet in Karl Salvo’s corpse. Jack has only a few memories of his father, all of them positive.
More than thirty years later, Jack is running his private investigation business from a small office building he owns in West Los Angeles. His parking space is behind the office, about a hundred feet from the spot where Karl Salvo was shot down in the alley. On a cold December morning, Jack is at his desk, sorting the mail. He gets a phone call informing him that an important clue has been uncovered in the shooting of his father. Fifteen minutes later, Jack is at the local police station, talking to an LAPD detective friend and examining the revolver that was used in the shooting. The gun was found under a house across the alley from Jack’s office. He then sets out on the most important investigative odyssey of his life, during which he encounters some of the nicest people you would ever want to meet . . . and some of the most malignant.