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Herda, D. J.

"HYMIE STIEHL"

Four-Book Series

Bk. 1 - Stiehl on the Loose - The Death and Life of Hymie Stiehl     When Yiddish Bulldog Hymie Stiehl learns that his friend, Jungle Jim Alavera of the Chicago White Sox, has disappeared, he knows he has to act fast.  Realizing that Alavera is still alive but in great danger, Stiehl and his young, rakish college-professor sidekick seek to locate him before the Mob does.  But when bodies begin turning up like dead flies at a bad delicatessen, Stiehl calls upon the local D.A. and the members of the venerable Twelfth Precinct to step in to help solve the case ... and very nearly ends up a statistic, himself.  

Bk. 2 - Courting Stiehl     As Hymie Stiehl and sidekick D. J. Shanahan arrive in Trinidad, Colorado, to ensnare whoever sent Stiehl's close contractor friend to prison, Stiehl has a revelation.  He sets the kid up as a contractor to work underground.  But when the "kid" gets charged with passing bad checks, contractor fraud, and finally murder, things get ugly.  Stiehl goes underground while the kid bails out, and the two of them meet to uncover the worst in human society--from a dirty District Court Judge right on down to drug-pushing, drug-crazed local vice cops gone wild.

Things look bleak for D.J.'s upcoming trial when suddenly Stiehl has a revelation.  Halfway through the preliminary hearing to bind the kid over for murder one, Stiehl shows up with three Federal officers--and the kid gets a change of venue ... much to the chagrin of the judge.  When the judge goes to step down and the FBI clasps him in cuffs, he pulls a gun from beneath his robes and shoots his own bailiff in the head.  As the judge is hauled away, Stiehl reveals the real savior behind the scenes in an ending as touching as it is creative.

Bk. 3 - Stiehl Stalkings     A Caribbean cruise goes sour when a wealthy German industrialist turns up dead during an attempted robbery--murdered with his own gun.  The plot thickens when Yiddish Bulldog Hymie Stiehl learns that the man's stepson had lost more than $20 thousand at the tables the night before.  The man's wife, too, stands to gain financially from her husband's death, although she voluntarily takes a polygraph test and passes with ease.  When links to a Belizean woman emerge, Hymie grows restless.  The deceased industrialist had been having an affair, and his wife found out.  What better peg to the murder than a spurned wife?  But when the wife's own son is killed, all eyes fall elsewhere, and it's up to Hymie to unravel the most bizarre and twisted tale of murder and chicanery ever.

Bk. 4 - Stiehl by Default     Ronald Deus has an ax to grind.  In fact, he has several.  The sharpest is reserved for his beloved mother—the only person standing between Deus and a fortune in family stocks and bonds.  But when he takes aim at committing the perfect crime, little does he realize that it’s he, himself, who is standing in his own crosshairs.