Stan Turner Mystery Series

As a youngster Stan Turner has his fortune told by the old Univac computer at the county fair. His fortune is an ominous one, predicting that he will have a difficult and perilous life. In the late sixties while an undergraduate at UCLA, Stan meets and falls in love with a beautiful brunette, Rebekah James. They are married during their junior year and finish out college together. Stan has a hard time getting into law school but finally is accepted by the University of San Diego. Although he gets a high number in the draft lottery, he is drafted just three days before the lottery takes effect, and ordered to report to duty. Stan and Rebekah now have a child and another one on the way, so they are concerned about having to live on a private's pay. Accordingly, Stan enlists in the Marines to avoid the draft and in the winter of 1969 reports to Officer Training School in Quantico, Virginia. Misfortune strikes again when Stan's first acquaintance at Quantico disobeys their drill sergeant's order and talks to Stan in the chow line. Although Stan doesn't say a word the offending candidate and Stan are singled out for special punishment. During the punishment Stan is beaten by his overzealous drill sergeant and ends up in sick bay where he meets Rita Andrews. She becomes his nurse when he is admitted to the hospital and, although Stan loves Rebekah, he becomes infatuated with this wonderful, caring woman who has suddenly appeared in his life. The next morning Stan’s drill sergeant is found murdered and Stan becomes the prime suspect. Stan is shocked when he is later arrested and charged with the drill sergeant's murder. He has no money for bail and is in the depths of despair when a journalist, Virginia Stone, offers to post his bail if she can have his exclusive story. Elated with the prospect of being released, he accepts the offer and sets out to prove his innocence. Aided by Virginia Stone, Rita, who has fallen in love with him, his court-appointed attorney, a hospital acquaintance, Sgt. Matson, and a few other friends enlisted along the way, Stan fights for his life by searching for his drill sergeant’s actual killer.

It's 1981 in Dallas and Stan decides to throw a Christmas party at his home as a way of saying thanks to the clients who have sustained him during his first tumultuous year in the practice of law. As Stan's luck would have it, a client is killed in a freak accident and Stan is blamed for his death. While trying to shield himself from the wrath of the grieving widow, he's asked to defend a young woman charged with murdering her newborn child. Since Stan has only been practicing a year, he knows he shouldn't take the case, but his client begs him to do it. Reluctantly, he agrees but enlists the aid of his former criminal law professor at SMU to be "Second Chair." He thinks everything is going to be okay now, but what he doesn't realize is that his professor is a drunk and probably won't show up for trial.

In this volume 2 of the Stan Turner Mysteries, Step into the shoes of Dallas attorney, Stan Turner, in the late 1970's as he begins the practice of law. Then hang on for the ride of your life as Stan immediately steps into a rattlesnake's nest and has to do some fancy two-steppin' to avoid a lethal strike from his own clients. When Stan's wife, Rebekah, is arrested for murder and a client turns out to be a ghost, Stan turns in his legal pad for a detective's notebook and goes to work to solve these most perplexing mysteries. Teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Stan pushes on relentlessly to extricate himself and his family from certain doom. Sex, greed and a lust for power drive this most extraordinary novel to a stunning conclusion.

A young mother complains to Stan that she’s been abandoned by her husband, left penniless, and deeply in debt. Maureen Thompson is livid with her husband and suggest she’d be better off if he were dead, so she could collect on his sizeable life insurance policy. Stan cautions her not to think in those terms and, before she leaves, promises to develop a strategy for effectively dealing with her seemingly unsurmountable problems. Several weeks later Maureen calls Stan from the City Jail where she’s been arrested for the alleged murder of her husband. Since Paula is between murder cases, Stan assigns the case to her. She is elated with the assignment until she finds out Rodney Thompson isn’t her first husband to fall victim to a seven-inch ice pick. While Paula is busy trying to prove Maureen Thompson isn’t the Ice Pick Killer, Stan and Jodie try to help an illegal Hispanic woman obtain redress for the murder of her husband at the hands of a sweatshop owner with ties to a Mexican drug cartel. It’s a dangerous case so Stan and Jodie team up with the Dallas Police and the FBI to attempt to bring the abusive employer to justice. But just when they think they have Icaro Melendez on the ropes he strikes back with a vengeance making Stan and Jodie wish they’d never taken on the case. But there is no going back now, so they press on, praying they’ll survive a final confrontation with the ruthless cartel.

Stan and Rebekah's good friends, Don and Pam Blaylock, are in deep trouble. An imprudent investment in a Golden Dragon franchise and their son's arrest for DWI trigger an avalanche of misfortune culminating with the murder of Luther Bell, the smooth-talking restaurant promoter responsible for their impending demise. While Stan conducts a preemptive investigation to prove his clients are innocent, he is inundated with lawsuits and claims from their growing list of creditors and must deal with the inevitable marital strife that threatens this once proud family. Then one of Stan's old flames resurfaces and makes a play for Stan's affections. A wrongful death suit worth millions, ancient Peruvian pottery filled with diamonds, and a confrontation with the Mob round out this nail-biting legal thriller.

After two tough years practicing law, Stan and his family take a well-deserved vacation to Colorado. Unfortunately the vacation is cut short when a client is found standing over the body of a dead IRS agent. It appears to be an open and shut case since Dusty Thomas has had a long feud with the dead agent Bobby Tuttle, and more than enough motive to kill him, yet he claims to be innocent. Stan's new partner Paula Waters convinces Stan to finish his vacation promising to handle Dusty Thomas' arraignment and get an investigation underway. While Stan is away, she makes good on her promise and even manages to arrange financing for Dusty's defense. But Stan is mortified when he reads in the Colorado papers that a radical paramilitary group, the Citizens Defense Alliance or CDA, is doing the funding. Since the CDA denies the legitimacy of the federal income tax and has been a target of federal prosecutors for many years, Stan and Paula immediately come under the close scrutiny of the FBI and the press. To further complicate matters, Stan's best client and close friend, Tex Weller, is reported missing by his wife. When Stan investigates his disappearance, he finds a letter that leads him to believe Tex is in Ecuador. While Stan is searching for Tex in Ecuador, Paula continues her investigation of Bobby Tuttle's murder and quickly discovers a long list of enemies with motive to kill him. But her investigation is sidetracked when she learns Stan is missing and may have been kidnaped. As weeks go by and Stan isn't found, she is forced to turn her attention back to the Dusty Thomas case and leave the search for Stan up to the FBI and the local Ecuadorian authorities. Barely able to concentrate, she plods on and day by day and soon becomes convinced that Dusty Thomas is innocent.

After being discharged from the United States Marine Corps, Stan ends up in Dallas where he intends to finish law school. In the spring of 1976, while attending SMU, he is recruited into the Republican party, elected county chairman, and finds himself helping President Gerald Ford in his campaign against Jimmy Carter. The campaign is marred, however by an untimely FBI investigation into the financial dealings of a major party contributor, Brad Thornton. The investigation unleashes an avalanche of misfortune beginning with the alleged murder-suicide of Stan’s friend, Rob Shepard, his wife Cindy and their three children and culminating in the resignation of two Republican candidates for the 67th District’s state representative seat. Stan, who can’t believe his best friend could have murdered his family, launches his own personal investigation to clear Rob’s name. When the investigation turns up new evidence that threatens members of a powerful Mexican drug cartel, Stan becomes the target of Cartel thugs and hit men. Undaunted by these threats, Stan enlists the help of a resourceful classmate, Paula Waters, and a law professor, Harry Hertel (aka Snake) and undertakes a dangerous mission to extract a key witness held by the Cartel at a Mexican resort. Still saddled with the responsibly to field a candidate in the 67th District Stan recruits his assistant, Kristina Tenison, for the job. Kristina is reluctant to run as no woman has ever been elected to this office since Reconstruction, but when Stan agrees to be her campaign manager, and promises her she’ll win, she reluctantly enters the race against the veteran incumbent, Ron Wells. But as the election draws near and she still finds herself lagging in the polls, she wonders if she hasn’t made a big mistake and questions Stan’s continued assurances that she’ll win.

This story begins on the infamous Black Monday, October 19, 1987. As the stock market is taking a nosedive and banks and S&L's are falling left and right, Stan is asked by the CIA to help an operative unravel an IRS garnishment and ends up caught in a fire-fight between the CIA and the FBI. His day grows more complicated still as he receives the surprising news that he has been named as the executor of the estate of one Lottie West, who has died in suspicious circumstances and who--Stan soon discovers--has been hiding priceless art treasures stolen during World War II. So the last thing Stan needs is a visit from his law partner, Paula Waters, who tells him she wants to defend the man accused of killing the chairman of one of Dallas' troubled thrifts. And it's only Monday...

A triple homicide is caught on tape by a professional photographer yet the person or persons responsible and the motive for this grisly crime are a mystery. This is the kind of high-profile murder case that attorney Paula Waters loves but as she tries to unravel the twisted facts a critical witness is murdered and two others disappear. When the trial finally begins and she thinks she has everything figured out, Stan informs her that she has it all wrong! Paula isn’t happy with Stan’s revelations, particularly since he has been of little help to her during the trial. In the past, he has been right there with her from the beginning to the end, but this time, he has been busy helping their new associate Jodie Marshall with her civil defense of an ex-Army MP who thwarted a thief in a jewelry store heist but managed to shoot the store owner in the process. Stan has his own troublesome bankruptcy case too. A Pakistani immigrant has been defrauded of his life savings of $250,000 by a thug preying on fellow countrymen wanting to immigrate to the U.S. Stan puts his client into a chapter 11 reorganization but the thug has little respect for U.S. laws or its judicial system causing Stan’s plan to go awry. Stan’s unexplained absences from the office further exacerbate his shaky relations with Paula, particularly when she discovers he’s apparently having liaisons with a hooker!