Showing results by author "Margaret Truman" in All Categories

The scene opens with an obscure death in Washington's Foggy Bottom, home of the State Department, shifts to mass murder in the downing of aircraft, and then moves on to mayhem in the streets of the new Moscow. Leaving an airport near New York, a D.C.-bound commuter plane falls to earth. At almost the same time, another crash occurs. And then... Firmly ruling out coincidence, investigators seek means and motive. The means are soon apparent: small-scale weaponry with large-scale impact.

At the big, aggressive newspaper The Washington Tribune, a young woman has been murdered. And the hunt for her killer is making sensational and lethal headlines. The victim, fresh out of journalism school, hoped to make a splash at the Trib - and then a maintenance man found her in a supply closet, brutally strangled to death. The Trib's journalists are at once horrified and anxious to solve the crime before the cops do, and put this scandal to rest.

The body of Nadia Zarinski, an attractive young woman who worked for Senator Bruce Lerner - and who volunteered at Ford's - is discovered in the alley behind the theatre. Soon a pair of mismatched cops - young, studious Rick Klayman and gregarious veteran Moses "Mo" Johnson - start digging into the victim's life, and find themselves confronting an increasing cast of suspects.

A mass shooting on the steps of the Capitol nearly claims the life of Robert Brixton’s grandson. No stranger to high-stakes investigations, Brixton embarks on a trail to uncover the motive behind the shooting. On the way, he finds himself probing the attempted murder of the daughter of his best friend, who works at the Washington offices of the CDC.

Arriving home from a fund-raising dinner, senior Illinois senator Lyle Simmons discovers his wife's brutally bludgeoned body. And like any savvy politician with presidential aspirations, his first move is to phone his attorney. In this case, it's his old friend and college roommate, former DA Philip Rotondi, who gamely agrees to step out of quiet retirement and into the thick of a D.C.-style political, criminal, and public relations maelstrom from which no one will escape unscathed.

Times are tough in Savannah for former cop and current PI Robert Brixton, so when he agrees to take on a 20-year-old murder case, he figures he's got nothing to lose. It's not long before the trail leads him deep into the corrupt underbelly of Savannah's power elite,and right into the lap of a secret government organization that's been offing "troublesome" politicians for decades.

Historic Union Station means nothing to the elderly man speeding south on the last lap of what will turn out to be a one-way journey from Tel Aviv to D.C. - on a train that will soon land him at Gate A-8 and, moments later, at St. Peter's Gate. This weary traveler, whose terminal destination is probably hell, is Louis Russo, former mob hit man and government informer. Two men are at the station to meet him.

As Margaret Truman knows from firsthand experience, living in the White House can be exhilarating and maddening, alarming and exhausting, but it is certainly never dull. Part private residence, part goldfish bowl, and part national shrine, the White House is both the most important address in America and the most intensely scrutinized.

Kenneth Ewald has what it takes to win the presidency: the support of his party, a lovely wife, a dynamic campaign. What neither he nor any candidate needs is a corpse. He knows only one man capable of solving a crime, clearing his son, putting his campaign back on track and catching a killer: his best friend Mac Smith. Oddly enough, it was Mac and his dog Rufus who found the body in the first place.

A drone-based terrorist attack in Israel kills dozens on a sun-splashed beach in Caesarea as America awakens to the shattering news that Vice President Stephanie Davenport has died of an apparent heart attack. That same morning, a chance encounter on the Washington Metro results in international private investigator Robert Brixton thwarting an attempted terrorist bombing. Brixton has no reason to suspect that the three incidents have anything in common - until he’s contacted by Kendra Rendine, the Secret Service agent who headed up the vice president’s security detail.

If someone in the pharmaceutical industry came upon a cheaper, non-addictive, and more effective painkiller, would he kill for it? Washington D.C. private detective Robert "Don't call me Bobby" Brixton, along with his mentors, attorneys Mac and Annabel Smith, discover that the answer is a resounding "Yes," as they try to help Jayla King, a medical researcher at a small D.C. pharmaceutical firm, carry on the work of her father. His experiments in the jungles of Papua New Guinea in search of such a breakthrough product led to his brutal murder and the theft of his papers.

When Charise Lee, a young Asian Canadian soprano, is found stabbed in the heart backstage during rehearsals, she suddenly goes from scarcely being seen as a star to taking center stage. Georgetown law professor Mac Smith thought he'd just be carrying a rapier in Tosca as a favor to his beloved Annabel, but now they're both being pressured by the panicked theater board to unmask a killer. Providing accompaniment will be former homicide detective, current P.I., and eternal opera fan Raymond Pawkins.

A Washington call girl is found bludgeoned to death in her Adams-Morgan apartment. As police detectives scour the apartment, they find a digital video camera nestled high among books on a shelf. Had she used the camera to video some of her clients during their sexual romps? Then they discover a small, book-sized DVD case, full with the exception of two slots. Could they possibly get lucky? Is the murder on one of those disks?

A Washington psychiatrist is killed in a hit-and-run on the street in front of his office. Suspicion quickly focuses on one of the doctor's patients, and Mackenzie Smith is called in to defend her. Then information emerges that links the slain shrink to a highly secret CIA mind-control project.

Private investigator Robert Brixton has always hated Washington. Against his better judgment, he decides to stick around and take a job as an agent in a new State Department security agency headed by his former boss at the Washington P.D. After work one day he meets his youngest daughter, Janet, for a drink at an outdoor cafe. Shockingly, a young Arabic woman blows herself up, killing Janet and a dozen others. Seeking revenge for his daughter, Brixton follows the tracks of the bomber to a powerful senator's son.

Laura is a young intern in Washington, D.C., working for handsome and likable Congressman Hal Gannon. Laura falls for the charming Gannon, but when she catches a stewardess at Gannon's apartment, she vows to destroy him. Private investigator Robert Brixton is a former cop who has also worked for the FBI. When Laura goes missing, Brixton is hired by Laura's family to gain insight into the case that the police might have missed.

David Portland works security for America’s British Embassy in London. His life is upended when his son Trevor dies mysteriously in Nigeria, while employed by a suspicious security/mercenary company known as SureSafe. One night, Portland sees a man in a bar wearing a bracelet - a family heirloom, which he had given his son - and attacks the man.