Frank Corso Series by G.M. Ford

What fires the blood, freezes the heart, twists the mind and drives a person to kill?G. M. Ford, author of the critically acclaimed Leo Waterman mystery novels, returns with a stunning tale of serial lies, corruption, and murder -- and throws an unforgettable new pair of investigators into the mad cosmopolitan mix of present-day Seattle.Frank Corso is a difficult man... moreWhat fires the blood, freezes the heart, twists the mind and drives a person to kill?G. M. Ford, author of the critically acclaimed Leo Waterman mystery novels, returns with a stunning tale of serial lies, corruption, and murder -- and throws an unforgettable new pair of investigators into the mad cosmopolitan mix of present-day Seattle.Frank Corso is a difficult man. A defrocked journalist vilified for allegedly making up "facts" on a major crime story while working for the sacrosanct New York Times, he now lives in virtual seclusion on a boat moored on the opposite end of the country -- surviving on the substantial royalties from a bestselling book and on his pay for the occasional column in a local tabloid, the Seattle Sun. Yet it's Corso whom the slow and sheltered Leanne Samples asks for when she walks into the Sun offices and announces that her courtroom testimony, which put Walter Leroy Himes on Death Row, was a lie.Several years earlier, eight Seattle women were slain over the course of eighty days, their bodies carefully displayed in Dumpsters throughout the city by a maniac whom the press dubbed "the Trashman." Leanne Samples would have been victim number nine, she claimed at the time, had she not barely escaped from the clutches of Walter Himes, a large, unwashed, prime sociopathic example of wasted humanity Now Himes is only six days away from execution and everyone wants him dead: the victims' families, the police, the general populace ... even the mayor himself. And Himes will die, unless Frank Corso can quickly change a public opinion that the public does not want changed.But this death train may be impossible for Corso to derail, even with the able assistance of photographer Meg Dougherty. Despite Leanne's shocking confession, the authorities seem unusually keen on having Himes disposed of permanently. And highly situated members of the Seattle PD refuse to consider requesting a stay of execution -- even in the face of the most startling evidence of all: a brutal new murder that bears the Trashman's unmistakable signature.With the clock relentlessly ticking down to Lethal Injection Day, Corso and Dougherty have suddenly made powerful, perhaps deadly, new enemies by getting themselves deeply into something that goes far beyond right, wrong, truth, and justice. And the key to a case that again threatens to devastate a city now ties in a hastily scrawled "tag" on an alley wall: the first three spray-painted letters of one angry word ... Fury. less

There is no stronger argument for the death penalty than Nicholas Balagula, the bloodthirsty West Coast crime boss who has been charged with sixty-three counts of homicide, many of them children. And now reclusive rogue journalist Frank Corso -- the only non-participant invited to observe the closed court proceedings -- stands uncomfortably in the center of the most crazed media circus to hit Seattle in years . . . until a personal tragedy diverts his attention... moreThere is no stronger argument for the death penalty than Nicholas Balagula, the bloodthirsty West Coast crime boss who has been charged with sixty-three counts of homicide, many of them children. And now reclusive rogue journalist Frank Corso -- the only non-participant invited to observe the closed court proceedings -- stands uncomfortably in the center of the most crazed media circus to hit Seattle in years . . . until a personal tragedy diverts his attention. When photojournalist Meg Dougherty -- once Corso's lover and still his dearest friend -- comes face-to-face with a pair of cold-blooded executioners and ends up clinging weakly to life in the I.C.U., the angry lone-wolf reporter vows to make all the guilty parties pay, by his own hand if necessary. But the black river of lies, secrets, corruption, and murder surrounding both the Balagula trial and Meg's "accident" is much deeper and more dangerous than even Frank Corso anticipated. And if he wades in over his head, the undertow could drag him to his death. less

The rules never mattered much to Frank Corso, rogue reporter, successful true crime writer, and honorable loner with a dangerous edge. The fact that two Texas troopers have a warrant with his name on it means nothing to him -- except run -- which he does in the company of photojournalist Meg Dougherty, his former lover and perhaps one true friend... moreThe rules never mattered much to Frank Corso, rogue reporter, successful true crime writer, and honorable loner with a dangerous edge. The fact that two Texas troopers have a warrant with his name on it means nothing to him -- except run -- which he does in the company of photojournalist Meg Dougherty, his former lover and perhaps one true friend. But the running stops when a furious Midwestern blizzard sends their car crashing to the bottom of an icy hill, and they are forced to seek an escape from the storm in an abandoned Wisconsin house of horrors.In a shed outside their temporary shelter a shocking discovery awaits Meg and Corso: human bones -- a lot of them -- the grisly remains of Eldred Holmes and his family. A hideous crime undetected for fifteen years is about to become a top priority for the understaffed local law, who want Corso to investigate. His first move will be to somehow locate the one family member who escaped the carnage, Eldred's wife, Sissy, whose skeleton is not among the others ... and whose face has been neatly scissored from every picture in the Holmes family album.With only eight days to solve a multiple homicide, Corso begins a hunt that will carry him halfway across the country and through a chilling history of violence, terror, and bloodshed that spreads from the small town of Avalon, Wisconsin, to the remote farmlands of New York State. And his single-minded pursuit will make Corso a marked man -- the target of a rage- driven maniac, a master of cunning reinvention -- as he draws closer to the shocking truth that's hidden away in an isolated mountain community, where no law protects the innocent. less

The nightmare began a year ago in Pennsylvania with the shocking death of a delivery driver, blown to pieces during an outrageous crime. And now the terror has spread from East Coast to West . . . As body parts pile up throughout the L.A. area--the result of a devastating series of bank robberies--federal agencies see nothing but the random hand of a bomb-tossing lunatic. Rogue journalist Frank Corso, however, sees the tracks of something far more sinister--something with a motive and a message... moreThe nightmare began a year ago in Pennsylvania with the shocking death of a delivery driver, blown to pieces during an outrageous crime. And now the terror has spread from East Coast to West . . . As body parts pile up throughout the L.A. area--the result of a devastating series of bank robberies--federal agencies see nothing but the random hand of a bomb-tossing lunatic. Rogue journalist Frank Corso, however, sees the tracks of something far more sinister--something with a motive and a message. But the closer Corso and research assistant Chris Andriatta come to a fiendishly audacious maniac, the clearer a blood-chilling truth appears in the harsh and glaring light: The fuse to this explosive horror may have inadvertently been lit by Frank Corso himself. less