Donald Boadway

Elvis Cole's relationship with attorney Lucy Chenier is strained. When she moved from Louisiana to join Elvis in Los Angeles, she never dreamed that violence would so easily touch her life - but then the unthinkable happens. While Lucy is away on business and her ten-year-old son, Ben, is staying with Elvis, Ben disappears without a trace. Desperate to believe that the boy has run away, evidence soon mounts to suggest a much darker scenario. Joining forces with his enigmatic partner, Joe Pike, Elvis frantically searches for Ben with the help of LAPD Detective Carol Starkey.

The blonde who walked into Cole’s office was the best looking woman he’d seen in weeks. The only thing that kept her from rating a perfect "10" was the briefcase on one arm and the uptight hotel magnate on the other. Bradley Warren had lost something very valuable - something that belonged to someone else: a rare thirteenth-century Japanese manuscript called the Hagakure. Just about all Cole knew about Japanese culture he’d learned from reading Shogun, but he knew a lot about crooks - and what he didn’t know his sociopathic sidekick, Joe Pike, did.