Showing results by author "Robert Lee Beers" in All Categories

Vampires don't exist, do they? That is a question Private Detective Tony Mandolin finds himself pondering as the evidence piles up in a case involving a string of dead redheads and the usual dose of weirdness San Francisco has to offer. To complicate things, Mandolin has to deal with the perception that he has become the latest golden boy of the fog city's crime boss. Then there's his cross-dressing friend Frankie...just another day in San Francisco.

Vampires don't exist, do they? That is a question Private Detective Tony Mandolin finds himself pondering as the evidence piles up in a case involving a string of dead redheads and the usual dose of weirdness San Francisco has to offer. To complicate things, Mandolin has to deal with the perception that he has become the latest golden boy of the fog city's crime boss. Then there's his cross-dressing friend Frankie.... Just another day in San Francisco.

San Francisco's only PI with an eye into the supernatural, is having one of those months. His bad mood drives him to his local pub where he encounters his latest client, a Leprechaun who's lost his adopted niece, a runaway Dryad, and that's where the problems begin. Some days it pours and when Landau Bain, the city's crankiest wizard, arrives on Tony's doorstep, he knows what's coming down isn't rain.

All families come with their own unique problems, but when that family is a clan of Eastern European vampires led by an extremely wealthy viscount living it up in a luxurious, imported castle, only Tony Mandolin can solve the problem. San Francisco's only flatfoot with an eye into the weird runs into trouble with a pregnant werewolf. Tony swears he never laid a hand on her. Now someone's burning the city's more corrupt citizens alive from the inside out. Needless to say, the city fathers are not pleased.

Someone is poisoning San Francisco's foodies. Tony Mandolin, the fog city's only Private Eye with a view into the supernatural, has been retained to find out whom and why. Unfortunately this brings him to the attention of Medb, the Queen of the Unseelie Court and it seems that Tony's only hope of survival lies in the hands of Landau Bain, the alcoholic wizard, and Bain is cranky.

Over the past decade, Tony Mandolin, Fog City's top Private Eye has had his share of the weird and horrifying. If asked, he would say his life has been a stumble from one cliche to the next, but none of that prepared him for what was coming down the tracks. What does a world-weary PI do when his client is a centuries-old witch?

Over the years, San Francisco's Private Investigator with an eye into the World of the Weird, caps intentional, Tony Mandolin has tackled vampires, demons, dragons, pixies, and various members of the world of the fae, and assorted things beyond description. All of them had one goal, the death of a certain PI. Most of Tony's cases occupy a set of volumes, twelve of them, with more to come. However, a few of those cases were brief enough, pun intended, to fit into a shorter narrative. This collection holds the best of them. Enjoy with a pint of Anchor's best and one of Bunty's dogs.

Someone is messing around with Luck. In a city with some of the largest underground gambling organizations in the world, Tony Mandolin, San Francisco's Private Eye to the weird, finds himself neck-deep in Cartels, Triads, and Russians, and the Russians want their money back. Soon our world-weary, cynical PI winds up in a card game where the loser has to give up a whole lot more than just his chips. And then things shift to a whole new level of insanity.

It's unsettling when your work lands on your neighbor's doorstep. When you're Tony Mandolin, the bay area's PI to the weird, it's more than a problem. When it's a family of Garden Gnomes who've lost their pet, expect catastrophe. And then a new case lands in Tony's lap that has ramifications that lead all the way to Washington DC and it involves a child slavery ring.

When did the weird become my normal life? That's Tony Mandolin's feeling when he has to deal with the original Count Dracula…and a massive hangover…at the same time. What does a rumpled private investigator do when the original wants to reunite with his estranged, "teetotalling" vampire family and figures Tony's just the guy to solve all his problems? And then there's this rogue dragon, the secret all librarians share, and an issue the Castro district thinks only Tony can solve. Ah... life.

In a fit of desperate arrogance, Gilgafed the Sorcerer opens a rift between the worlds and releases a horror of old, a Seeker. Combined with the soul of a thief named McCabe, the creation becomes the one prophecies call The Destroyer. Aware now of his mistake and regretting his impulsive action, Gilgafed knows he must seek help to rid the world of this monstrous evil, but the only one capable of aiding him is his ancient enemy, Milward, last of the Wizards. Milward has his hands full with the conflicts raging through the Southern Empire. Charity and Adam, twin scions of the ancient House of...

War is in the wind. Twins and the last scions of the House of Labad, Charity and Adam--each unaware that the other is alive--face the oncoming strife filling the land on opposite sides of the conflict. The wizard Milward parted from Adam during an angry row yet continues to do his best to guide the siblings unawares as the wall between the worlds weakens. Adam has become the officer of the guard under the son of the mad Duke of the city-state Grisham, and joins the army as they begin fighting the soldiers from the south. Charity continues her search for a life after believing Adam dead, ...

When Tony Mandolin upset the plans of the international child slavery ring, he had no idea just how far up the chain the consequences of doing that would run. Now he has a Vatican wetwork team after him and they have no problem taking out whoever is between them and a certain San Francisco PI. To add to the chaos, someone has figured out how to make paper money in the city deadly to the touch. Pickpockets are dropping like flies, and guess who has to solve the mystery in order to prove he's innocent?

Tony Mandolin, San Francisco’s PI to the weird, gets dragged into a fairy tale, literally. He finds out that much of the Grimm dimension has been a-hem, sanitized for the masses. Snow White is more like soiled snow and the dwarves can’t stop smiling. Red Riding Hood is a PI and guess who her assistant is? Then there is this one word question nobody wants asked, but when Monahan, Frankie, Greystoke and Alcina, Tony’s ex-girlfriend get dropped into the party things go beyond weird and a big stinking pile of cliché hits the fan.

There are many magical gems in the world. Some bring luck and long life and some bring death and despair. A rare few are so powerful they are even sought after by the gods. One such jewel is even said to be able to remove the curse of the vampire from its victim. The wise consider the men who seek such gems as fools or worse. For the adventurer known as Bandoor, the wise are idiots.

Over the past several years, Tony Mandolin has had dealings with the Devil. During those times the guy from way down below has wound up on the losing end, but in their last encounter, the Devil lost one of his lieutenants, permanently and now he is pissed. Tony had been dropped into the world of fairy tales by someone Lucifer would prefer you not mention, and while there, San Francisco’s only PI of the weird managed to thoroughly mess up a scheme millennia in the making, so now, even if it gets him a shortcut to the pit of fire, Satan wants his pound of flesh, plus about another 200. And ...

Is a clone a perfect copy, or do they degrade over time? That's a question Tony Mandolin, San Francisco's only Private Eye with contacts in the supernatural has to figure out when he's suddenly confronted with reports that his cross-dressing partner Frankie's been committing violent crimes all over the city, all at the same time. Who the hell is making "Frankie" copies? Tony wants to know. Taking a literal trip to Satan's kingdom may be the only way for a slightly tattered PI to figure this case out.

Heroes become legend, legend becomes myth, and empires decay as ordinary men fail in their oaths. Above all, sorcerers never forgive and forget. Twin siblings Adam and Charity are about to find themselves in the middle of events that are already in motion, threatening to shake the foundations of the empire. Moreover, if the prophecy made by Labad, the last great Emperor, is right, the twins are the only ones with the power to save the world from annihilation. Milward the wizard has read the prophecy--at least he has a copy though the original has been lost for over a thousand years, hidden ...

So, why is Santa having his elves pound the dickens out of Tony Mandolin? And why are all the heads of the Bay Area’s Organized Crime Families asking Police Captain Monahan to have Tony deal with an interloper who is taking their empires down one by one? Someone, or something is messing around with the spirit of Christmas, and Tony Mandolin, San Francisco's Private Eye for the wierd has been chosen to solve the problem. Ho, ho, frickin’ ho.

Dragons were said to once rule the world, but in ages past the powerful creatures retreated to their mountain fastness to leave the younger races to their own devices. Then the magik war came and the dragons were forced to intervene to prevent the world’s destruction. They succeeded but an emperor died and an empire began to slowly collapse into decay. Rifts in the fabric of reality were formed in the cataclysmic violence of that war--rifts that magik could penetrate if the wielder were either arrogant enough…or insane. With the barrier between the world of men and shadow rapidly ...