Showing results by author "Frank Zafiro" in All Categories

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to The Last Cop & Other Stories and experience the compelling world of Frank Zafiro's crime fiction.

Sandy Banks is the last of The Four Horsemen, a vigilante group of ex-cops determined to right the injustices of a broken court system. But now, the project is disintegrating, putting him in the middle of chaos.

It is December 1999, and the spectre of Y2K hangs over the police department. More menacing yet, officers respond to a hate-fueled home invasion robbery. As the entirety of the River City Police Department prepares for possible chaos when the calendar turns over to the year 2000, they also must stop a gang of white supremacists who plan to use that same chaos to mask their biggest crime yet.

A frustrated crime scene cleaner...an off duty cop in a jam...a patrol officer who believes in a strange fate...a holier-than-thou Internal Affairs whose world gets turned upside down...plus those that are crazy, surrounded in sadness or just trying to get by - these are the many and varied characters of River City, brought to life in 17 short stories by the author of the River City crime novels.

River City is plagued by a serial rapist. His attacks are becoming more brutal and Detective John Tower is sure that he’ll go from rape to murder if he isn’t stopped soon. Meanwhile, the rapes stir up ghosts for both Officer Katie MacLeod and Officer Thomas Chisolm. Both struggle to put those haunted memories to rest even as they are drawn into the center of Tower’s investigation. When a series of missteps and near misses push the rapist even further, everyone involved must face their old fears...or be destroyed by them.

Every city has organized crime. But only River City has a Russian gangster like Valeriy. He’s meticulous, cunning, and willing to sacrifice anything - and anyone - to see his conquest through. In Val’s way are the men and women of the River City Police Department, including rookie B. J. Carson. She’s trying to fill the shoes of a legend while the pressures of patrol and her own past catch up to her. She and her colleagues must unite and work together with a former River City cop turned FBI agent to face down the single biggest organized crime threat River City has ever seen.

A violent robber is loose in River City. Meet the cops that must take him down. Stefan Kopriva, a young hotshot. Katie MacLeod, a woman in what is still mostly a man’s world. Karl Winter, about to retire but with one more good bust left in him. And Thomas Chisolm, a former Green Beret who knows how dangerous a man like the Scarface Robber can be. These are the patrol officers of River City - that mythical thin blue line between society and anarchy.

Longtime grifters and lovers, the couple is in St. Louis to run a con on Barry Jacobsen, who owns a concrete business. But the clock is ticking on the deal, and on them. Mobsters from Philadelphia are one step behind, seeking revenge for the pair’s most recent scam.

One last mission. One impossible choice. One chance at redemption. For years, Sandy Banks has been the government’s most dangerous secret—a former soldier and vigilante turned unwilling assassin in a covert program that doesn’t exist. Every mission is kill or be killed. Every witness must be silenced. And there’s no way out. But Sandy is done. His body is failing, his conscience is drowning, and he wants to retire. When an operation against a cartel lieutenant goes sideways, Sandy makes a choice that shatters protocol—and puts him in the crosshairs of both his enemies and his own handlers.

Sandy Banks has temporarily escaped the life of a vigilante assassin in Spokane and is trying to find his way back home. It won't be easy--the agent he evaded is determined to bring him to justice. She is tenacious and resourceful, dredging up the elusive truth of Sandy's past as she pursues him.

Meticulous private investigator Stanley Melvin likes to keep his work grounded in reality, not at all like the classic detective novels he has read incessantly since childhood. But his best friend and annoying neighbor Rudy quickly points out that his routine "cheater" case is rapidly taking on all of the features that Stanley steadfastly insists are mere fictional tropes of the genre. Stanley isn't too sure how he feels about this. But as a professional, he forges ahead, despite getting out of his comfort zone.

At Their Own Game: Jake Stankovic has been flying below the radar for years, dealing safely in stolen property crime. When he tries to make a drug deal, everything goes wrong. In the Cut: Boone has been prospecting with the Iron Brotherhood outlaw motorcycle gang for almost a year, trying to earn his patch. A simple muscle job goes terribly wrong and changes his world forever. All the Pieces Fall: George “Mase” Masaryk knows about secrets.When businessman Andrew McDonough sits down next to him at the bar, the pair start drinking heavily, and McDonough eventually asks Mase for his help.

Detective Jack “Mac” McCrae has lost his hero. Without children or any family, the retired detective takes the death of his mentor hard. When the man's son reaches out to Mac with a mysterious letter containing a startling confession and a plea for help, Mac finds he can't say no.

When disgraced former cop Stefan Kopriva is asked by an old high school classmate to find a runaway 16-year-old girl, he reluctantly accepts. Driven by guilt over a terrible mistake that drove him from the force more than ten years earlier, Kopriva battles old injuries, old demons and long ago memories as he unravels the mystery of the missing Kris Sinderling...and seeks his own redemption.

Faced with a possible murderer that won't answer questions, a police department asking the wrong people the wrong questions, and threats of violence from an unknown source, Kopriva forges on, determined to discover the truth...even if it kills him.

Billie Jo Higgins may be small, but she is a skilled burglar, using her craft to keep her and Toby, her addict twin brother, afloat in a hard world. It is a difficult life, but the two are surviving. They take care of each other.

A young woman has been murdered in River City. Police Detective John Tower is assigned to the case, but there are few clues to go on. As he digs into the case, he's soon picking up hints that this murder may not be the killer's first...or his last.

When Ania Kozak hits Vegas, she’s only looking for a place to relax and lay low with her stolen cash and diamonds. But Sin City has other plans for “Annie".

Jack “Mac” McCrae is about to retire. Without children or any family, he looks back over his career and his life and finds himself wondering what, if any, impact he’s had on this world.

Dead Even features 15 stories highlighting major and minor characters from the River City series, including series favorite Katie MacLeod, Detectives Finch and Elias, hard-luck Officer Paul Hiero, and transplanted gangster Dominic Bracco.