Chasing Clay (The DeWitt Agency Files Book 3)
Page 37
When one of Allyson’s clients has a need to fill that involves art in whatever form, Matt gets the project. He can knock down a chunk of his debt with each payoff… so long as he stays alive and out of jail. Sometimes he’s paired with Carson, a disgraced Toronto cop who has her own debts, problems, and useful skills. Together they make a pretty good team – if they don’t kill each other first.
Follow Matt as Allyson’s projects drag him around the world, where he sees new places, meets new friends, avoids new enemies, and discovers (or pulls off) new scams. If he plays his cards right, he can make a lot of money, pay off his debts, and build a new life. All he has to do is not screw up… which is much harder than it sounds.
The DeWitt Agency Files series
#1 The Collection
#2 Stealing Ghosts
#3 Chasing Clay
Four years ago, what Matt Friedrich learned at work put him in prison. Yesterday, it earned him a job. Tomorrow, it may kill him.
Matt learned all the angles at his old Los Angeles gallery: how to sell stolen art, how to “enhance” a painting’s history, how to help buyers hide their purchases from their spouses or the IRS. He made a load of money doing it – money he poured into the lawyer who worked a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney. Matt’s out on parole and hopelessly in debt with no way out…until a shadowy woman from his past recruits him to find a cache of stolen art that could be worth millions.
Now Matt’s in Milan, impersonating a rich collector looking for deals. He has twenty days to track down something that may not exist for a boss who knows a lot more than she’s telling. He’s saddled with a tough-talking partner who may be out to screw him and up against a shady gallerist whom Matt tried to send to prison. His parole officer doesn’t know he’s left the U.S. Worse yet, what Matt’s looking for may belong to the Calabrian mafia.
Matt’s always been good at being bad. If he’s good enough now, he gets a big payday with the promise of more to come. But one slip in his cover, one wrong word from any of the sketchy characters surrounding him, could hand Matt a return trip to jail…or a long sleep in a shallow grave.
Available from Amazon in Kindle and trade paperback editions.
“The mystery has enough twists and turns – with the characters keeping plenty of secrets – to keep the reader guessing until the very end… A charming start to what promises to be an intriguing series.” – The BookLife Prize
“The Collection is a breezy read in the way the very early Leslie Charteris’ Saint novels were breezy: entertaining with an underlining of grit below the surface…” – Criminal Element
Dorotea DeVillardi is ninety-one years old, gorgeous, and worth a fortune. Matt Friedrich’s going to steal her.
The Nazis seized Dorotea’s portrait from her Viennese family, then the Soviets stole it from the Nazis. Now it’s in the hands of a Russian oligarch. Dorotea’s corporate-CEO grandson played by the legal rules to get her portrait back, but he struck out. He’s hired the DeWitt Agency to get it for him – and he doesn’t care how they do it.
Now Matt and his ex-cop partner Carson have to steal Dorotea’s portrait from a museum in a way that nobody knows it’s gone, and somehow launder its history so the client doesn’t have to hide it forever. The client’s saddled them with a babysitter: Dorotea’s granddaughter Julie, who may have designs on Matt as well as the painting. As if this wasn’t hard enough, it looks like someone else is gunning for the same museum – and he may know more about Matt and Carson’s plans than he should.
Matt went to prison for the bad things he did at his L.A. art gallery. Now he has a chance to right an old wrong by doing a bad thing for the best of reasons. All he has to do is stay out of jail long enough to pull it off.
Available from Amazon in Kindle and trade paperback editions.
“Interlacing storylines give this series its charm… It’s nice to have some modern It Takes a Thief escapism to slip away to in this world gone awry. Suffice it to say, I can’t wait for The DeWitt Agency Files #3.” – Criminal Element
“A brilliant heist story filled with fascinating art history reminiscent of Dan Brown or Steve Berry. Only better.” – Seeley James, author of the Sabel Security thriller series
Jake Eldar’s and Miriam Schaffer’s names may kill them.
Jake manages a bookstore in Brooklyn. Miriam is a secretary at a Philadelphia law firm. Both grew up in Israel and emigrated to build new lives in America. Neither knows the other exists…until the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad uses their identities in an operation to assassinate a high-ranking Hezbollah commander in Doha, Qatar.
Now Hezbollah plans to kill them both.
Jake, Miriam and ten other innocents in five countries – the Doha 12 – awake to find their identities stolen and their lives caught between Mossad and Hezbollah in an international game of murder and reprisal. Jake stumbles upon Hezbollah’s plot but can’t convince the police it exists. When his wife is murdered in a botched hit meant for him, Jake and Miriam try desperately to outrun and outfight their pursuers while shielding Jake’s young daughter from the killers on their trail.
Hezbollah, however, has a fallback plan: hundreds of people will die if Jake and Miriam survive.
Available from Amazon in Kindle and trade paperback editions.
“Doha 12 will have you riveted from beginning to end… be one of the first discoverers of an exceptional writer.” – Seeley James, author of The Geneva Decision
“Doha 12 is an exciting and hard-to-put-down read of fiction, not to be overlooked.” – Midwest Book Review
Luis Ojeda owes his life to the Pacifico Norte cartel. Literally. Now it’s time to pay.
Luis led escaping American Muslims out of the U.S. during the ten years following a 2019 terrorist attack on Chicago. He retired after nearly being killed by a border guard. But now in 2032, the Nortes give Luis a choice: pay back the fortune they spent saving his life, or take on a special job.
The job: Nora Khaled – FBI agent, wife, mother of two, and Muslim. She claims her husband will be exiled to one of the nation’s remote prison camps to rot with over 400,000 other Muslim Americans. Faced with her family’s destruction, she’s forced to turn to Luis – the kind of man she’s spent her career bringing to justice.
But when the FBI publicly accuses Nora of terrorism, Luis learns Nora’s real motive for heading south: she has proof that the nation’s recent history is based on a lie – a lie that reaches to the government’s highest levels.
Torn between self-preservation and the last shreds of his idealism, Luis guides Nora and her family toward refuge in civil war-wracked Mexico. The FBI, a dogged ICE agent, killer drones, bandits, and the fearsome Zeta cartel all plan to stop him. Success might free Luis from the Nortes… but failure means disappearing into a black-site prison, or a gruesome death for them all.
Available from Amazon in Kindle and trade paperback editions.
“South is a compelling futuristic thriller, as convincing a cautionary novel as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was in its day…” – CriminalElement.com
“South is a riveting work of action/adventure suspense that is a real page-turner… Lance Charnes demonstrates a truly impressive knack for deftly creating a complex and thoroughly engaging story…” – Midwest Book Review