Showing results by author "Neil S. Plakcy" in All Categories

Forty-two-year-old Steve Levitan has lost everything that matters to him: his marriage, his home, and his career. After finishing a brief prison term for computer hacking, he returns to his home town of Stewart's Crossing, PA, with his tail between his legs. With his parole officer peering over his shoulder, Steve begins a technical writing business and takes a part-time job as an adjunct professor of English at his alma mater Eastern College.

When his mentor, Joe Dagorian, director of admissions at prestigious Eastern College, is murdered during a fundraising event, Steve Levitan feels obliged to investigate. He and his golden retriever, Rochester, go nose to the ground to dig up clues, including a bloody knife and some curious photographs. But will Steve’s curiosity and Rochester’s savvy save them when the killer comes calling? A cozy mystery for dog lovers!

Three charming cozy mysteries with heart-- and fur! Stolen treasures, a cane-whacking elderly woman and a couple of dead bodies. Join Steve Levitan and Lili Weinstock as they navigate the treacherous waters of wedding planning-- and murder.

There’s a new dog in town--a golden retriever named Luke, in training to be a seeing-eye dog. He and Rochester immediately bond, but there’s something odd about Luke’s human, Ben Ji. How can someone so young afford an expensive townhouse on Sarajevo Way? When Ben is shot, Steve begins to discover the lies he has been telling.

Mahu Fire begins as openly gay Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka attends a local charity event in support of gay marriage. When a bomb disrupts the gala, Kimo, his family, and friends are thrust into a deadly contest between good and evil. A wave of religious fundamentalism sweeps through O’ahu, at the same time as violence against gay and lesbian-owned businesses is on the rise. Coincidence? Kimo doesn’t think so. Working with hunky fire inspector Mike Riccardi, Kimo digs through the ashes to discover a motive for the attacks, as well as who is behind them.

An Alzheimer’s patient slips away from home on his own and tumbles into the Delaware River. And then Steve’s love Lili suffers the crushing loss of her mother in a Miami Beach hospital. Eckhardt Lalor left behind a fortune in real estate, a fractured family, and a bitter legacy as a city slumlord. Does that add up to murder? There’s no question of what killed Benita Weinstock — a dodgy heart — but her death rocks her daughter’s world, and Steve’s. It will be up to Rochester to solve the crime and heal his humans in this new mystery with heart — and fur.

From the moment he sees handsome Liam McCullough showering naked behind a Tunisian bar, ESL teacher Aidan Greene wants to make love to the sexy bodyguard. At first, though, a dead courier and beefy hired thugs get in the way. But as soon as Liam and Aidan head toward a rendezvous with a Tuareg tribe at a remote oasis, they start getting naked together and exploring all the passion Liam hid from as a closeted Navy SEAL and all the love Aidan missed from a long-term boyfriend who has just kicked him to the curb.

It's almost time for graduation, and Eastern College is in trouble. A prominent alumna is dead, and a faulty computer program is jeopardizing student records and financial aid. It's up to Steve and Rochester to dig into the situation and retrieve the culprits! Rita Gaines wasn't a nice person-but she did love her dogs, and most of her clients respected her financial acumen and her talent in training dogs for agility trials.

Autumn has come to Bucks County, and Steve Levitan has a new job: Develop a conference center for Eastern College at Friar Lake, a few miles from campus. But on his first visit to the property, his golden retriever, Rochester, makes a disturbing discovery: a human hand rising from the dirt at the lake's shore. Whose hand is it? Why was the body buried there? The answers will take Steve, his photographer girlfriend, Lili, and the ever-faithful Rochester to a drop-in center for recovering drug addicts on the Lower East Side....

Stop by for some comfortable visits to Stewart's Crossing, where reformed computer hacker Steve Levitan and his crime-sniffing golden retriever Rochester are nose to the ground in this collection of mystery short stories that take place between novels. In the first of these stories, Steve is learning to love the big, goofy golden he has inherited on the death of his neighbor, and Rochester shows him how to open his heart and his home to his sweetheart Lili.

Mahu Surfer, the second book in my Mahu Investigations mystery series, sends gay Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka back to his surfing past. His new boss asks the former competitive surfer to go undercover on Oahu’s North Shore to find the killer of three surfers. The catch: He can't tell any of his family or friends that he has returned to the force, causing him to lie, when he has just come out of the closet and begun to tell the truth about his life. In his return to the North Shore, Kimo discovers trouble in paradise.

Steve Levitan and Lili Weinstock are on their way to the altar—but dognapping and murder get in the way. The theft of the vice-mayor's dog unveils a widespread pattern of canine thefts. Could those poor pooches be on their way to a testing lab or a puppy mill? And how does that case play into the death of a Billy Joel tribute act? Could the caterer they've hired be responsible?

Openly gay Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka is faced with a new murder that comes dangerously close to his personal life. About a year and a half has passed since the flames engulfed Waahila Ridge State Park at the end of Mahu Fire. During that time, Kimo and fire investigator Mike Riccardi dated for about six months, but with Kimo so visible and Mike in the closet, the pressures on them increased to the point where their relationship ended. When a fire breaks out at a shopping center Kimo's father used to own and a young boy is killed, they are forced to work together.

Reformed computer hacker Steve Levitan has built a new life for himself after prison, including a home with his fiancée and his golden retriever Rochester. It matters deeply to him, enough to risk it all to bring justice to a killer in his neighborhood.

Peggy was a great friend to Steve when they were teens. Can he help her now as she faces the death penalty? As teens, semi-reformed hacker Steve Levitan admired his friend Peggy because of the way she fought back from a difficult childhood to travel to France and aspire to a college degree and a career as a lawyer.

When a local gallery owner is murdered, Lili is asked to identify artists who graced an event she photographed two decades ago. As shadows of the past resurface, the couple's wedding concerns pale in comparison to the enigma unfolding before them. Lili digs deep into her memories, Steve scans the dark web for details about a crime that went unpunished, and Rochester sniffs out clues to help them both bring justice.

Semi-reformed computer hacker Steve Levitan’s longtime girlfriend, Lili, is acting out of character, and he's eager to figure out why and how he can help her. But that gets delayed when he and his golden retriever, Rochester, are asked to help investigate a double homicide in a posh neighborhood of Stewart's Crossing.