Richard Hawke – författare

Senator Andrew Foster has it all: charm to spare, a loving wife, a beautiful daughter, and a fast-track career that will surely land him one day in the White House. And with the sudden resignation of the vice president, that track may have gotten a lot faster. But there’s a problem. There are people who know that Andy Foster’s charm can get the better of him, and they have bugged the Shelter Island bungalow where he is enjoying a midnight tryst with a beautiful campaign adviser. But all hell breaks loose when a man carrying an iron pipe comes crashing through the bedroom’s sliding glass door. Within seconds, the young woman lies bloodied, dead on the sheets, and Foster has fled in panic. And it’s all on tape.As momentum builds for Foster’s likely selection as the next vice president, the senator’s only hope of keeping his involvement with the murdered woman secret is to locate his blackmailers. But even they don’t have their hands on the devastating images. The man they used for the job has turned the tables and is blackmailing them.All the while, Foster’s personal life is collapsing. His wife, Christine, senses that something is terribly wrong. Unhappy about their daughter’s living in a political fishbowl, Christine is also worried that she and her husband have drifted away from each other. Little does she know that power-hungry politicians and brutal gangsters are ready to rip her family utterly apart.From the rarefied halls of Washington to the briny boardwalks of Brighton Beach, Richard Hawke pulls back the curtain to reveal what is taking place inside the hearts and minds of the powerful people we read about every day in the news. With House of Secrets, Hawke has delivered a pulse-pounding thriller that ignites the fatal mixture of politics, arrogance, and lust. From the Hardcover edition.

"From first line to last, Speak of the Devil moves with a rare combination of intrigue and intensity. Its engine runs on high octane adrenalin. Richard Hawke delivers a winner."--Michael ConnellyIt’s a beautiful Thanksgiving morning in New York City. Perfect day for a parade, and Fritz Malone just happens to have drifted up Central Park West to take a look at the floats. Across the crowd-filled street he sees a gunman on a low wall, taking aim with a shiny black Beretta. Seconds later, the air is filled with bullets and blood. Fritz isn’t one to stand around and watch. A child of Hell’s Kitchen and the bastard son of a beloved former police commissioner, Fritz is all too familiar with the city’s rougher side. As the gunman flees into the park, Fritz runs after him. What he doesn’t know is that he is also running into one of the most shocking and treacherous episodes of his life.Though Fritz assumed that chasing down bad guys is perfectly legal, the cops hustle him from the scene and deliver him to the office of the current commissioner, who informs Fritz that someone dubbed “Nightmare” has been taunting the city’s leaders for weeks, warning of an imminent attack on the citizenry. What’s worse, Nightmare has already let the officials know that the parade gunman was a mere foot soldier and that there’s more carnage to come unless the city meets his impossible demands. The pols don’t dare share this information with anyone–not even the NYPD. What they need for this job is an outside man. And in Fritz they think they’ve got one.Racing against the tightest of clocks, Fritz finds himself confounded by Nightmare’s multiple masks and messengers. The killer is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. But as Fritz’s frantic investigation takes him from a convent in the Bronx to a hookers’ haven in central Brooklyn, the story behind the story–complete with wicked secrets on both sides of the law–begins to emerge. As Fritz zeroes in on the terrible, gruesome truth, the killer retaliates by making things personal, forcing Fritz to grapple with his deepest fear: sometimes nightmares really do come true.In his brilliantly paced and stunningly original debut, Richard Hawke delivers a tale of flawed and unforgettable people operating at the ends of their ropes. It’s literary suspense that doesn’t let go until the last page.From the Hardcover edition.

In the stew and dazzle of New York City, savvy, irreverent Fritz Malone–who Susan Isaacs called “the perfect balance of noir P.I. and decent guy”–is embroiled in a string of grisly murders that drags him behind the lurid headlines into the tangled affairs of some the city’s most beautiful people and their ugly truths.When two women linked with charismatic late-night TV personality Marshall Fox are found brutally slain in Central Park, Fox becomes the prime suspect and is charged with the murders. At the tabloid trial, one of Fox’s ex-lovers, Robin Burrell, is called to testify–and is instantly thrust into the media’s harsh spotlight. Shaken by a subsequent onslaught of hate mail, Robin goes to Fritz Malone for help. Malone has barely begun to investigate when Robin is found sadistically murdered in her Upper West Side brownstone, hands and feet shackled and a shard of mirror protruding from her neck. But it’s another gory detail that confounds both Malone and Megan Lamb, the troubled NYPD detective officially assigned to the case. Though Fox is in custody the third victim’s right hand has been placed over her heart and pinned with a four-inch nail, just as in the killings he’s accused of. Is this a copycat murder, or is the wrong man on trial? Teaming up with Detective Lamb, Malone delves deeper into Fox’s past, unpeeling the layers of the media darling’s secret life and developing an ever-increasing list of suspects for Robin’s murder. When yet another body turns up in Central Park, the message is clear: Get too close to Fox and get ready to die. And Malone is getting too close.In Cold Day in Hell, Richard Hawke has again given readers a tale about the dark side of the big city, a thriller that moves with breakneck speed toward a conclusion that is as shocking as it is unforgettable.Praise for Richard Hawke’s Speak of the Devil“Richard Hawke has managed what some writers spend a lifetime trying to accomplish: He has come up with a character and place that should entertain in countless stories to come.”–Rocky Mountain News“Fast-moving, first-rate . . . Hawke’s plot grabs us by the throat. . . . He keeps the suspense mounting.”–The Washington Post“[A] bang-bang thriller . . . We are absolutely powerless to stop reading.”–Chicago Tribune“Mr. Hawke’s [novel] tours the city . . . with unusual streetwise panache . . . but this isn’t a book that coasts on its urban geography. It lives by its wits, and its wits would work anywhere.”–The New York Times“A deftly paced debut that crackles and pops from page 1.”–Booklist (starred review)“Thrill-a-minute pacing and inspired plot twists.”–Newsday“[An] amazing thriller . . . Hawke’s dialogue is sharp and snappy and the plot moves with all the energy of New York City.”–Cleveland Plain Dealer“Hawke razzle-dazzles us with . . . bada-bing narration and quirky, well-drawn characters.”–The Boston Globe“[Packed] with a breathless pace and hair-pin turns.”–South Florida Sun-SentinelFrom the Hardcover edition.