DIVAn old flame’s fiancé is missing, and only Drum can save him from the Soviets/div DIVChester Drum will never love another woman the way he loves Marianne. After years of on-and-off romance, he tells her that his work as a private detective is too dangerous for him to ever marry, so she ends the affair and moves to West Berlin, to report on the Cold War from its front lines. There she falls in love with Quentin Hammond, ace foreign correspondent, and Drum is happy for her until her new man disappears behind the Iron Curtain. She telegraphs for help, and Drum is on the next plane./divDIV /divDIVHammond was close to winning the scoop of the century, by cooperating with an exiled East German dissident to tunnel beneath the Berlin Wall and free thousands of people from the other side. Before they could complete their audacious scheme, though, the Stasi kidnapped them. Only Drum has the skills to go behind the wall and return with the man who’s stolen the woman he loves./div

DIVDrum confronts a senator to save the life of a drunken old friend/div DIVWhen Chester Drum knew him, Jack Morley was a Washington player, just a few promotions away from becoming Secretary of State. A bad divorce and a nervous breakdown later, Morley has hit rock bottom, and works in Paris for the Army ghoul squad, confirming the deaths of World War II soldiers long ago reported missing in action. Morley is content to spend the rest of his life wallowing in the bottom of a Pernod bottle, until word gets out that he is blackmailing a US senator—an accusation that could cost him his life./divDIV /divDIVThough disgusted by his old friend’s drunkenness, Drum agrees to make Morley’s case to the senator. Blackmailer or no, Morley has stumbled onto a conspiracy that dates back to the end of the war. If Drum can’t get to the bottom of it, Morley won’t be the only one to die./div

A PI heads from DC to Saudi Arabia to save the life of a client targeted by a hit man. Nothing will stop the beautiful Fawzia Totah and her lover, US Army colonel Lyman Tyler, from boarding a plane for the Middle East to make their pilgrimage to Mecca. So Fawzia hires Washington PI Chester Drum to serve as bodyguard until she’s safely out of the country. But Lyman’s wealthy mother, Davisa, doesn’t want Fawzia to go anywhere safely. The violently bigoted, socially connected woman comes from old Virginia money, and she’s not about to let this former dancer from Jordan risk her precious Southern reputation. Not only is her son prepared to convert to Islam for the woman he loves, he’s also already married. When Davisa hires a hit man to track down Fawzia and take her out, Drum has no choice but to follow. However, Davisa’s motives aren’t as simple as they first seem—and the road to Mecca has a sudden turn no one will see coming. This is a twisting, fast-paced mystery in the vintage series that “combined elements of the hard-boiled detective story and the international espionage thriller” by a recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America’s lifetime achievement award (The New York Times). Mecca for Murder is the 2nd book in the Chester Drum Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Private Eyes is the complete map to what Raymond Bhandler called "the mean streets," the exciting world of the fictional private eye. It is intended to entertain current PI fans and to make new ones.

DIVProtecting an actor takes Drum into the seedy underworld of psychedelia/div DIVTerminal illness and regret go hand-in-hand. Two months ago, Amos Littlejohn was in the prime of life, and had plenty of energy to be enraged when his pregnant daughter was abandoned by her husband, matinee idol Ahmed Shiraz. Now stricken with leukemia, Littlejohn is near death, and beginning to regret taking out a contract on the actor’s life./divDIV /divDIVHe hires international private eye Chester Drum to call off the hit and protect Shiraz until his life is safe. On his first night on the job, Drum’s partner takes a shotgun blast meant for the actor. Wanting nothing more than to wring Shiraz’s neck, Drum follows him to Europe, where he must contend with assassins, beatniks, and the powerful effects of an experimental drug called LSD./div

DIVA sadistic KGB colonel hires Drum to locate a dead man/div DIVAxel Spade would not have liked the way he died. An international fugitive, Spade would have preferred being gored by a bull or gunned down by Interpol to dying quietly in his bed. But a weak heart claimed him in his sleep, and so Chester Drum, Washington PI and the closest thing Spade had to a friend, scatters his ashes in the Atlantic./divDIV /divDIVDrum’s old flame, Marianne Baker, is by his side, but she leaves before grief has a chance to reignite their faded passion. That night, Drum is awoken by a KGB operative who has kidnapped Marianne. Axel Spade is alive, the agent insists, and he wants Drum to find him. To save Marianne, Drum will do the impossible, and bring Axel Spade back from the dead./div

DIVDrum guards a killer against an assassin with diplomatic immunity/div DIVEverybody knows George Brandvik killed Jorgen Kolding. As soon as the jury acquits him, Brandvik sells his story to View magazine, confessing to the crime in exchange for a payday. Once the magazine hits newsstands, the death threats start rolling in—semi-literate garbage which nevertheless must be taken seriously. A reporter from View hires private detective Chester Drum to protect Brandvik, and an hour hasn’t gone by before Drum saves the killer’s life, disarming a Swedish blonde before she can plug Brandvik in the gut. She is the dead man’s daughter, and her diplomatic immunity means she will be deported, not prosecuted. But before she leaves, her bloodlust must be sated./divDIV /divDIVThat afternoon, the reporter and his driver are killed by a car bomb, and Drum sees the Swedish girl fleeing the scene. Soon Brandvik is dead too, gunned down in his bathroom. Drum books tickets to Iceland, to learn if this waifish blonde is really as deadly as she seems./div