Stephen J. Cannell – författare

When it comes to creating unforgettable criminal characters, nobody does it better than Emmy Award winner Stephen J. Cannell, the force behind such acclaimed TV hits as "The Rockford Files," "The Commish," "Wiseguy," and "The A-Team." Now come Cannell''s most engaging characters yet—a spirited assortment of clever con artists.King Con vs. The Don

Raised in a world of flimflams, come-ons and con-jobs, Beano Bates has done so well he''s earned a spot on the FBI''s Ten Most Wanted List. But his lucky streak vanishes after a card game in which he scams a cool eighty grand from a notorious Mafia don—who retaliates by having Beano nearly beaten to death.

For the first time in his legendary career, Beano wants more than a big score—he wants justice. Aided by a beautiful, no-nonsense female prosecutor and a legion of crafty cousins, all accomplished grifters, Beano, the king of the cons, puts together the ultimate swindle—a well-planned sting of strategy, skill and deception. The target is America''s most feared mob kingpin and his psychopathic brother. And in this game, winner takes all!

Meet Chick Best—a middle-aged, self-absorbed California dot.com millionaire. Other than his house and high-priced foreign cars, Chick’s most expensive possession is his trophy wife, Evelyn. Evelyn is good at spending Chick’s money, money that has pretty much run out. Another problem is his drug-addled sixteen-year-old daughter, Melissa. Though concerned about his family, Chick has resigned himself to a miserable state of acceptance. That is, until he, Evelyn, and Melissa take a Christmas vacation in Maui. With this, Chick’s life changes.…

Chick experiences unrequited love at first sight when he observes Paige Ellis emerging from the hotel swimming pool. His obsession, exceeded only by his need to possess her, isn’t diminished when he learns that she is happily married. Instead, Chick’s obsession compels him to drive to Paige’s house, where he runs down and kills her husband. Chick’s life begins to spiral homicidally out of control, resulting in the destruction of everything he holds dear. Will Paige learn the truth about Chick before it’s too late?

Fast paced, filled with wry humor, murder, lust, and dead-on L.A. characterizations, Cannell has written his most explosive novel yet.

Driving along the freeway, Shane Scully glances over and sees Jody Dean, his oldest friend and LAPD colleague, at the wheel of an adjacent car. Why is Scully so surprised? Because it''s been two years since Jody committed suicide in the Rampart Division parking lot by blowing his brains out with a service revolver. Shane served as a pallbearer at the funeral.What Scully will discover is that Jody and five other cops who are supposed to be dead are anything but; originally sent deep undercover to bust an extremely violent criminal network, they have become the LAPD''s worst nightmare. Calling themselves the Vikings, they are rogue cops who know how the system works. In order to penetrate the group and set his cover, Scully is supposed to shoot his fiancée, Alexa. The setup goes awry and Shane finds himself looking down at his future wife''s body. He is soon driven into the corridors of near-madness and into the bed of an extremely beautiful and utterly ruthless corporate seductress who threatens to destroy his soul.Shane''s desperate and deadly undercover journey takes him from the embrace of Alexa and his teenage son, Chooch, to the Caribbean island of Aruba--to the decadence of Columbia''s opulent palaces and the desperation of its deadly streets. In Viking Funeral, an electrifying thriller from Stephen J. Cannell, Sergeant Scully is driven to the psychological brink, his life in the hands of the most dangerous killer he''s ever known--his closest childhood friend.

What if, under the PATRIOT Act, federal bureaucrats could take murder cases away from local cops—then bury those cases so they''re never investigated again?What if government agents could bug your home, your car, your place of business—your entire life—with nothing more than spoken permission from a secret panel of judges?What if the Department of Homeland Security could pull police officers off the street and hold them in cells indefinitely as material witnesses—because they''re working on "sensitive" investigations?They can . . .The PATRIOT Act and the Homeland Security Act give enormous power to our nation''s top federal law enforcement officials. They operate under the presumption that these officials are honest, diligent, and fair.But what if they''re not?In THE COLD HIT, Detective Shane Scully suspects that the regional boss of the Department of Homeland Security is thwarting a major murder investigation. But why?Robert Allen Virtue can act without oversight or accountability. There''s no way to question him; there''s no way to way to check up on him; there''s no way to find out if he''s exceeding his authority. Virtually at will, he can bug anyone he considers a threat to national security, take over criminal investigations, and jail cops. Even if he is breaking the law, there''s no way to know it. There''s nothing to rely on but his integrity. His professional commitment. His good name. Virtue.That may be a very big mistake.Shane and his partner are investigating "the Fingertip Killer," a serial murderer preying on homeless Vietnam vets in Los Angeles. A bullet taken from one victim''s skull matches the bullet that killed another man ten years earlier—an unexpected ballistics match linking one unsolved case to another that police call a "cold hit." When the earlier victim turns out to have been an LAPD cop, the investigation becomes very personal for Shane. But there''s a problem: Robert Allen Virtue wants him taken off it.To solve the cop''s murder, and possibly the Fingertip case, Scully must go behind the powerful bureaucrat''s back and deep undercover—where he will begin unraveling a deadly far-reaching conspiracy that threatens to destroy everything he loves: his career, his freedom, and his family.

The bestselling novelist and award-winning Hollywood producer weaves a high-tension novel of suspense around a chilling conspiracy of corruption within the LAPD, reminiscent of the classic movie "Chinatown."Inside the department, they''re called Tin Collectors: Internal Affairs Agents, the police of the police. If they catch you breaking the rules, they''ll come after your badge. If they want you badly enough, they''ll collect more than just your tin.LAPD Detective Shane Scully is startled awake in the middle of the night by a call from his ex-partner''s wife, who is being beaten by her abusive husband. Racing to their house to stop the fight, Scully ends up killing his ex-partner, a cop who is beloved within the department. Suddenly, Scully finds himself an outcast, shunned by his fellow cops who intend to exact vengeance no matter what the cost. Internal Affairs zeroes in on the "renegade" cop with their sharpest young prosecutor, the ice queen Alexa Hamilton, who has her own reasons for taking revenge on Scully.Desperate to save his career, Scully starts kicking over rocks within the LAPD. What he uncovers is pure evil: a conspiracy going to the very top that ultimately threatens not just his own life but that of a young teenage boy, Chooch, entrusted to Scully''s care by his mother - Sandy Sandoval. Known as the Black Widow, Sandy is a beautiful and courageous woman who also happens to be the LAPD''s most important undercover informant, and Scully will do anything to keep her son safe. Stephen J. Cannell combines mystery and violence, loyalty and passion in a tale with an ending as unpredictable as LA itself.

As an Emmy Award winning writer, Stephen Cannell has created over 40 TV series, including The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero, and 21 Jump Street. He is also a New York Times Bestselling author. In Runaway Heart, Cannell combines cutting edge biotechnology and action-packed suspense in a new and stunningly original thriller set on the outer fringes of medical science . . . What would modern war be like if the front-line foot soldiers were not our sons and daughters, but genetically engineered animals with superhuman strength and speed, and just enough intelligence to understand commands and follow them blindly?This is exactly the weapon being developed at a base in the desert by a top-secret government agency.Attorney Herman Strockmire, a rumpled man with a very big but defective heart, champion of lost legal causes and the infuriating nemesis of giant corporate polluters, becomes involved when one of his employees is literally torn limb from limb by one of the experimental prototypes.At great personal risk, Herman , his beautiful daughter and law partner, Susan, and ex-LAPD detective, Jack Wirta, ignore all threats and plunge headlong into harm''s way, finding themselves involved in a nightmare beyond anyone''s wildest imagination...This science exists today. The future is now.

On the heels of Three Shirt Deal, a New York Times bestseller, comes an electrifying new thriller from Stephen J. Cannell in which Lt. Shane Scully is accused of evidence tampering and his wife, Alexa, discovers Shane''s been having an affair with a beautiful movie star.Charged with felony misconduct in a high-profile solicitation of murder case, Lieutenant Scully is faced with an impossible decision: either quietly resign from his job as a detective for the LAPD, the work he loves, or face criminal prosecution. Rather than smear the department''s reputation and his own, Scully chooses to leave. His colleagues of years feel betrayed to learn that a dirty cop has been in their midst. His wife, Alexa, the chief of detectives, leaves him, seeking a divorce for his dalliance with the accused in the case, a beautiful, well-known Hollywood actress. His son, Chooch, horrified by these events, won''t even speak to him. Life as Scully knows it is over. Or so it seems . . .In order to make a living the only way he knows how, Shane seeks employment from a police department that has been known to hire rejects from other departments: the Haven Park PD. Haven Park is an incorporated city near downtown Los Angeles, just one square mile in size and populated almost entirely by Mexican immigrants, most of them illegal. The department is a hotbed of corruption, in effect the personal goon squad and collection agency of the town''s mayor, Cecil Bratano. Ushered into the department by his new partner, Alonzo Bell, Shane takes his lessons in policing from one of the dirtiest cops around.But things in L.A. are hardly ever what they seem. Relentlessly harassed by an over-zealous FBI agent, the alluring Ophelia Love, and under the constant, violent, and hyper-paranoid scrutiny of his new comrades-at-arms, Shane finds himself in snare a far greater than any he could have expected. His estranged wife may be the only one who can get Shane out of this mess alive. The question is: Is she willing to do so?

From the perennial New York Times bestseller comes a powerful new novel in which Detective Shane Scully, who grew up as an orphan, must revisit his painful childhood to find out who murdered the kind and charismatic man who became a father to himAbandoned by his parents as an infant, Scully was reared in an orphanage, Huntington House. The only positive thing in his young life was the attention of the Home''s director, Walter "Pop" Dix. Pop, an avid surfer, would take a small group of kids for early morning surfing. He was the father none of them had ever had.That was thirty years ago. Now, Shane is forced to revisit these memories when Pop is found dead, the victim of an apparently self-inflicted shotgun blast. He leaves a message asking six specific people, all of whom attended Huntington House, to be his pallbearers, and Shane is one of the chosen. He and his fellow pallbearers don''t believe it was a suicide. That leaves murder. But why, and by whom?Together, the pallbearers embark on a dangerous odyssey in pursuit of justice for Pop, and for retribution against those responsible for his death. Their journey takes them up against an unforeseen adversary whose power and influence far exceed anything they could have imagined.

In the last novel by acclaimed producer and New York Times bestselling author Stephen J. Cannell, LAPD detective Shane Scully and his partner Sumner Hitchens investigate a crime with ties to the sometimes violent world of reality TVLita Mendez was a thorn in the LAPD''s side. An aggressive police critic and gang activist, she''d filed countless complaints against the department. So when she''s found dead in her home, Detective Scully and his partner Hitchens fear the worst: that there''s a killer in their ranks.Outside the crime scene, Nixon Nash and his television crew have set up shop. Nash is the charismatic host of a hit reality show called "Vigilante TV," dedicated to beating the cops at their own game: solving murders before they can. Now he has the murder of Lita Mendez in his sights. He presents the detectives with a choice: either join his team, or prepare for a public takedown.But Scully knows that Nash isn''t the folk-hero he seems. He will do anything in the name of self-promotion. If a detective got in his way, would he be prepared to kill? In this new novel, Scully will have to risk everything save himself and the job he loves.

The New York Times bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning writer/producer sets his next action-packed thriller in the high stakes world he knows best: HollywoodBack on the LAPD and hailed as a hero after taking down a deadly gang of rogue cops in The Viking Funeral, Shane Scully finds himself unwittingly involved in a criminal scheme to take over the movie business. Soon, he will have to go deep undercover to take down a Hollywood conspiracy.At a glamorous party with his new wife, Alexandra, Shane hears a world famous director make an ominous remark about the strange deaths of his ex-wives. This is more than police business, it''s personal: Alexandra''s closest friend is engaged to the producer.When he looks closer, Scully discovers that the director''s mysterious past may hide deadly secrets. To uncover them, he must work alongside a former down-and-outer-turned-Hollywood impresario to infiltrate the movie business''s violent dark side, a world where deals are settled with handshakes but broken with the spilling of blood, and where the danger to Shane''s loved ones is all too real.

The New York Times bestselling author combines medical sciences and action-packed suspense in this stunningly original thrillerWhat if the military''s foot soldiers were not our sons and daughters, but genetically engineered animals programmed to kill, with superhuman strength and speed and just enough intelligence to follow orders blindly? This is exactly the weapon that a top-secret government agency is developing in the desert.Attorney Herman Strockmire, a rumpled man with a very big but defective heart, is a champion of lost legal causes who becomes involved when his employee is literally torn limb from limb by one of the creatures. At great personal risk, Herman, his beautiful daughter and law partner, Susan, and ex-LAPD detective Jack Wirta, plunge headlong into harm''s way, finding themselves in a nightmare beyond anyone''s wildest imagination.

The Edgar and Emmy Award-winning writer and producer delivers a high-concept thriller of inter-bureau conspiracy and betrayalA nightmarish series of events sweeps LAPD''s Sergeant Shane Scully and his wife (and boss), Alexa, into the vortex of an enormous, jurisdictional firestorm. First, a sheriff''s deputy, a friend of Shane''s, is gunned down while serving a routine search warrant. His fellow deputies blame the incident on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, whom they angrily accuse of failing to warn them that the suspect had a huge arsenal of illegal weapons in his house. Soon thereafter, a member of the ATF Situation Response Team is shot to death, followed by the sniper murder of a member of the Sheriff''s Special Enforcement Bureau. At the request of the Mayor, the LAPD—an uninvolved and unbiased agency—assigns Shane to investigate. He is given an impossible deadline to find a solution before these two elite and deadly SWAT Teams kill each other off amid a hurricane of horrible publicity. Stephen Cannell is one of television''s most prolific and recognized producers. His Shane Scully series has been gaining a growing audience since the publication of The Tin Collectors, and Vertical Coffin is his best outing yet.

Cannell delivers non-stop action and intrigue in the latest installment of his New York Times bestselling Shane Scully seriesShane Scully and his partner are assigned to the case of "the Fingertip Killer"—a serial murderer preying on homeless veterans in Los Angeles. Every two weeks he strikes: he beats his victims, then shoots them in the back of the head. Once they''re dead, he cuts off their fingertips, closes their eyes, and tosses them in the river.The latest killing, however, does not quite fit the pattern. It appears to be the work of the Fingertip Killer, but Scully suspects an elaborate copycat murder meant to hide a criminal conspiracy. A bullet pulled from the victim''s skull produces what police call a "cold hit," an unexpected ballistics match linking one unsolved case to another, and the previous victim was an LA Police officer, killed ten years earlier.After heavy-handed FBI agents throw him off the Fingertip Killer case, Scully teams up with his wife and boss, Alexa, and a pair of tough cops from the LAPD''s anti-terrorism squad. Outside the law and deep undercover, they fight to see justice done for the slain officer, and, possibly, to unravel a murderous plot with connections high up in the Homeland Security office.