Showing results by author "Neil Plakcy" in All Categories

Peggy was a great friend to Steve when they were teens. Can he help her now as she faces the death penalty? As teens, semi-reformed hacker Steve Levitan admired his friend Peggy because of the way she fought back from a difficult childhood to travel to France and aspire to a college degree and a career as a lawyer.

Semi-reformed computer hacker Steve Levitan’s longtime girlfriend, Lili, is acting out of character, and he's eager to figure out why and how he can help her. But that gets delayed when he and his golden retriever, Rochester, are asked to help investigate a double homicide in a posh neighborhood of Stewart's Crossing.

Openly gay Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka is faced with a new murder that comes dangerously close to his personal life. About a year and a half has passed since the flames engulfed Waahila Ridge State Park at the end of Mahu Fire. During that time, Kimo and fire investigator Mike Riccardi dated for about six months, but with Kimo so visible and Mike in the closet, the pressures on them increased to the point where their relationship ended. When a fire breaks out at a shopping center Kimo's father used to own and a young boy is killed, they are forced to work together.

Mahu Surfer, the second book in my Mahu Investigations mystery series, sends gay Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka back to his surfing past. His new boss asks the former competitive surfer to go undercover on Oahu’s North Shore to find the killer of three surfers. The catch: He can't tell any of his family or friends that he has returned to the force, causing him to lie, when he has just come out of the closet and begun to tell the truth about his life. In his return to the North Shore, Kimo discovers trouble in paradise.

There’s a new dog in town--a golden retriever named Luke, in training to be a seeing-eye dog. He and Rochester immediately bond, but there’s something odd about Luke’s human, Ben Ji. How can someone so young afford an expensive townhouse on Sarajevo Way? When Ben is shot, Steve begins to discover the lies he has been telling.

Mahu Fire begins as openly gay Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka attends a local charity event in support of gay marriage. When a bomb disrupts the gala, Kimo, his family, and friends are thrust into a deadly contest between good and evil. A wave of religious fundamentalism sweeps through O’ahu, at the same time as violence against gay and lesbian-owned businesses is on the rise. Coincidence? Kimo doesn’t think so. Working with hunky fire inspector Mike Riccardi, Kimo digs through the ashes to discover a motive for the attacks, as well as who is behind them.

An Alzheimer’s patient slips away from home on his own and tumbles into the Delaware River. And then Steve’s love Lili suffers the crushing loss of her mother in a Miami Beach hospital. Eckhardt Lalor left behind a fortune in real estate, a fractured family, and a bitter legacy as a city slumlord. Does that add up to murder? There’s no question of what killed Benita Weinstock — a dodgy heart — but her death rocks her daughter’s world, and Steve’s. It will be up to Rochester to solve the crime and heal his humans in this new mystery with heart — and fur.

From the moment he sees handsome Liam McCullough showering naked behind a Tunisian bar, ESL teacher Aidan Greene wants to make love to the sexy bodyguard. At first, though, a dead courier and beefy hired thugs get in the way. But as soon as Liam and Aidan head toward a rendezvous with a Tuareg tribe at a remote oasis, they start getting naked together and exploring all the passion Liam hid from as a closeted Navy SEAL and all the love Aidan missed from a long-term boyfriend who has just kicked him to the curb.

Autumn has come to Bucks County, and Steve Levitan has a new job: Develop a conference center for Eastern College at Friar Lake, a few miles from campus. But on his first visit to the property, his golden retriever, Rochester, makes a disturbing discovery: a human hand rising from the dirt at the lake's shore. Whose hand is it? Why was the body buried there? The answers will take Steve, his photographer girlfriend, Lili, and the ever-faithful Rochester to a drop-in center for recovering drug addicts on the Lower East Side....

Stop by for some comfortable visits to Stewart's Crossing, where reformed computer hacker Steve Levitan and his crime-sniffing golden retriever Rochester are nose to the ground in this collection of mystery short stories that take place between novels. In the first of these stories, Steve is learning to love the big, goofy golden he has inherited on the death of his neighbor, and Rochester shows him how to open his heart and his home to his sweetheart Lili.

Who hasn't experienced a pang of lust or longing at a photo of a male model? Whether a hundred times life size on a billboard or romping through the pages of a glossy magazine in his Calvins, Tommys, or Ralphs, the male model is the gold standard for masculine beauty. The characters in these stories run the gamut, from the billboard-gracing Aiden in Cynthia Hamilton's "Big Picture", to life models in drawing classes, to runway models, to ordinary guys immortalized in a catalog shoot in T. Hitman's "When Gary Met Larry".

Steve Levitan and Lili Weinstock are on their way to the altar—but dognapping and murder get in the way. The theft of the vice-mayor's dog unveils a widespread pattern of canine thefts. Could those poor pooches be on their way to a testing lab or a puppy mill? And how does that case play into the death of a Billy Joel tribute act? Could the caterer they've hired be responsible?

Eric and Allie share a history neither of them knows how to forget. Once, they were teenage stepbrothers thrown together by their parents’ marriage. Two boys navigating grief, rigid rules, and feelings neither was ready to name. One night changed everything. Silence followed. Then distance. Then years of pretending it never happened. Now they’re adults. Eric is disciplined, controlled, and freshly untethered after leaving the military and finishing his degree. Allie is rebuilding his life piece by piece after addiction and rehab, determined not to fail again.

A Body at the Purim Carnival. A Hidden Past. A Community in Danger. When his golden retriever Rochester noses out a dead body behind the bounce house at Stewart’s Crossing’s first Purim carnival, Steve Levitan is pulled into two dangerous investigations, each revealing its own world of secrets, power, and betrayal.

Eric and Allie share a history neither of them knows how to forget. Once, they were teenage stepbrothers thrown together by their parents’ marriage. Two boys navigating grief, rigid rules, and feelings neither was ready to name. One night changed everything. Silence followed. Then distance. Then years of pretending it never happened. Now they’re adults. Eric is disciplined, controlled, and freshly untethered after leaving the military and finishing his degree. Allie is rebuilding his life piece by piece after addiction and rehab, determined not to fail again.

The body in the canal belongs to Steve's old friend. Can Steve and Rochester uncover the clues to what happened to him? When his college friend Doug moves to Stewart's Crossing after an ugly divorce, reformed computer hacker Steve Levitan sees a way to pay forward the help he received under similar circumstances. But when Doug dies under mysterious circumstances, Steve and his crime-solving golden retriever Rochester have a new goal: Find the truth behind Doug's death, even if Steve has to risk the freedom he has fought so hard for to do it.

In Food of the Dogs, Steve and his bride Lili head to Vermont for a relaxing honeymoon—until Rochester uncovers a murder victim. Their romantic getaway turns into a dangerous search for a killer hiding among small-town secrets. Dog Grant Me finds Steve back at Friar Lake Conference Center, where a winter cooking course becomes the setting for threatening notes, political intrigue, and a student’s murder. As a blizzard closes in, Steve, Lili, and Rochester must unmask a killer before the storm traps them with a murderer.

Two cozy novellas explore murder, mystery, and mayhem at the local dog park in this unique collection from authors Neil S. Plakcy and Joanna Campbell Slan.

Warren Updegrove has always been good at following the rules. Football gave him structure, purpose, and a clear future. But when his college career ends without the pro contract he expected, Warren is left drifting, unsure who he is without the game that defined him. What he isn’t ready to examine is the quiet truth he’s been carrying for years. Thom Lodge is steady, observant, and far more honest with himself than Warren knows how to be. What begins as a math tutoring assignment turns into an easy friendship, then it deepens into something Warren can’t rationalize or control.

Fresh out of Florida University with a degree in construction management, Manny lands his dream job with Loredo Construction. He’s crushing hard on his thirty-something boss, Walter Loredo: a sexy, successful, and supposedly straight alpha male who commands attention on every job site.