Frozen Treasure, A Robert Sable Mystery, Out June 2013

When Montezuma saw the Spanish coming, he sent an army of warriors with most his treasure north to the home of their ancestors (Alaska).  An archeology professor, Edward Stone, and a friend stumble onto Aztec tablets in the Alasakan wilderness that have the potential to lead to a vast treasure.  The men pay for it with their lives.  Sable and his team are assigned the case, which becomes dangerous immediately. 

The meager clues consist of cocoa drops consisting special spices, Capsaicin powder used in the tortures and murders, and Aztec tablets and Don Salvador Fidalgo’s personal log.  At first Sable scoffs at the tablets believe then to be fakes, but testing of the patina show they are of Alaskan origin and Carbon-14 tests validate their age. So Sable gets a retired professor and long time friend to translate the codices.  They tell of the warrior’s journey, but the story is incomplete.  A tablet or several tablets are missing.  This means Sable and his team may have to find the remaining tablets and mythical treasure to catch the criminals. As he follows the clues, Sable finds corrupt members of the Mexican and Spanish governments are behind the plot and  who will use any method to get to the treaure first, killing anyone in their path. Sable and his team must bend the law by using extraordinary measures to stop the killers.

Deadly Rites, A Robert Sable Mystery Nov 2012

           Sergeant Robert Sable and his partner, Aaron McCabe, have been called to a crucifixion at Saint James’ Church.  Someone killed and nailed a priest to a hewn cross, raised it, inverted and left it hanging in the center of the sanctuary.   At the base of the cross, a plaque reads “For the Children.”  A parishioner finds an unconscious priest next to the cross and calls the troopers.  He has a bloody knife in his hands and across his chest are scattered photographs of both priests molesting the parishioners’ children.  CSIs also find pornography on the priests’ computers and in their rooms. 

          At first, the case seems a slam dunk, but chemical tests show both priests have been drugged with gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB).  Another priest is missing and Sable wonders if he’s the killer or he, too, has been murdered.  In the missing priest’s room, there are no fingerprints, hair, fibers, DNA, or any trace of the him.  However, an invisible message readable only with black lights had been left with the name, Avenger.  On the surface, it appears priests are killing priests, but perhaps Alaska has another serial killer.  

          As Sergeant Sable starts his investigation, he finds similar murders occurred across the lower 48 states, the killer apparently working his way toward Alaska.  A number of priests blamed for similar crimes at their churches are on death row.  The troopers begin their investigation by questioning church staff and parishioners, and getting a sketch of the missing priest.  Sable’s team checks numerous databases to see if they can pin down a suspect.  Realizing the Avenger is somewhere in the state’s system of church schools or churches, Sable’s team decides to go undercover to catch the killer.  With the killings still happening, Sable must sift out the clues, find and stop the killer.

Dark Gold, A Robert Sable Mystery, Published 2003 at Amazon

Dark Gold, the 4th Robert Sable Mystery is the unifying pivot of the series.

             Alaska State Trooper Robert Sable is a man with a troubled past. He watched his wife and son die at the hands of his enemies and, having weathered that tragedy, has recently lost his fiancé, Lisa Riddell, in a bus crash.  Guilt is driving Sable; neither his physical strength nor his psychic gifts were enough to protect the people he loved.  Sliding into a lifestyle of alcohol abuse and risk-taking, it is uncertain if Sable himself will survive.

            Sable's partner, Josh Sampson, is the son of a World War II pilot lost in a plane crash in Alaska.  Sampson knows the secret of the C-46's last flight: it carried a fortune in gold.  What he doesn't realize is how ruthless Philip Martin Frost, the son of another crewmember on the doomed aircraft, is prepared to be.  Frost, a merciless killer, hides behind a mask of respectability.  He eliminates Josh Sampson without a qualm and prepares to kill Robert Sable, on the assumption that Sable knows everything.

            However, Sable knows nothing of the lost riches.  Driven by Sampson's death, Sable and new partner Aaron McCabe, tackle the clues that Sampson left behind.  Slowly, they piece together the puzzle of the lost plane and its cargo.  Confronted by competing FBI agents, crooked cops, hired assassins and hardened crime bosses, they try to track down the gold and stop the cycle of killing. Along the way Sable rediscovers his self worth and has another chance at love.  

DARK SHAMAN, Mystery/Horror, Published 2003, available at Amazon

 This is an earlier Robert Sable Mystery with a horror twist.

            Children are being kidnapped and slaughtered in the Alaskan bush.  Alaska State Trooper Robert Sable takes over the investigation from Nicholas Kelly, who has vanished without a trace. Sable has to deal with an elusive killer who is more cunning than all his previous adversaries.  FBI Agent Annelle Carpenter joins Sable on the case to help track down the serial killer.  Their hunt encompasses the town of Token, nearby Indian villages, and hundreds miles of wilderness.  As they interrogate local rapists, pedophiles and sexual deviants, the bodies of children keep turning up.  Each clue and suspect leads to a dead end.
           A Tlingit village shaman, Dan-e-wåk, believes the killer is a powerful ancient evil shaman, Auktelchnīk, who has returned.  Though Sable and his partner scoff at the idea, the mounting evidence seems to validate the absurd theory.  Working almost 24 hours a day, Sable realizes he needs a break to get a new perspective on the case.  He takes a weekend off to visit an archeological excavation with professor Lisa Ridell from the University of Fairbanks.  At the dig, Sable finds ancient evidence of similar murders.  Could this be coincidence or is someone imitating the ancient legend?  When he returns, he discovers someone is killing off the suspects one by one.  Is the new killer an irate parent or someone else?  If the serial killer is the ancient shaman, how do they find him and stop him?

The Alaska Dutchman Sept 2012

This rapid pace novel Robert Sable Mystery is being queried:

Once again Tlingit Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Robert Sable has been pulled from his honeymoon.  This time his wife’s godfather, Red Bennett, a prospector, has been murdered.  Fishermen found Bennett’s body near the railroad tracks south of Fairbanks. And Sable and his long time partner Aaron McCabe head to the crime scene to do their own investigation.  Near the Bennett's outline, they find a note and safety deposit key.  Sable and his partner locate the miner’s back trail and follow it to his mining cabin where they find the miner’s friends slumped over a table, their heads laying in pools of blood. While investigating the scene, Sable finds hidden under the base of the prospector’s fireplace several hundred thousand dollars in gold nuggets the killers missed. 

As Sable digs further, he hears rumors Bennett had found the Alaska Dutchman, a mine of myth and legend. Over the last hundred years, men have search and died trying to find it with little success. If they found it, the curse would kill them and the mine would be lost again.

        Sable follows the clues and find someone is extorting or killing miner for their claims in the Yukon River basin

.  Rumors indicate a dead man, Phillip Frost, is behind the operation.  A man Sable and his partner killed on another case.  When Sable gets close to the real architect, the man sends several assassins after his and his partner's family.  These attacks not only drive a wedge in Sable's marriage, but Sable is forced to secret his wife away as the attacks keep coming.  He and his team realize they must find the gold mine and find a way to stop the mastermind behind the plot.  But the safety deposit key leads to only more cryptic clues and one part of a map.  Now, Sable and his team must find the rest of the puzzle and put it together before criminals find the mine.

Stalker, A Robert Sable Mystery, May 2012

             More dangerous than Theodore Bundy, Gary Ridgeway or Robert Hansen, a serial killer calling himself Anubis stalks the cities and highways of Alaska. This killer leaves no fingerprints, fibers or DNA.  But at each crime scene, Anubis leaves his signature, a silver-backed jackal hair.  He hides behind stolen identities and dumps his kills in the wilderness to become carrion for wild animals.  Any trace of the body disappears within days.  But now, Anubis has made a mistake.  He kidnapped and murdered a Seattle police detective.  At the behest of the Seattle police, Alaska State Trooper Robert Sable and his team are brought in to find the missing detective, Sergeant Janet Darnel. 

            Sable discovers several young women, vacationing alone, have disappeared from motels across the state.   When whitewater rafters running the Matanuska River find the nude body of Darnel, Sable and his team get their first real break in the case.  It seems Anubis follows the women from Ted Stevens International Airport to their motels, studies their routines, then kidnaps, hunts and kills them.

Silent Killer, A Robert Sable Mystery October 2011

Silent Killer is another fast paced and exiting Robert Sable Mystery to be out in October 2011.  Here is a quick overview:
           While on a fishing trip to Whittier, Alaska, Alaska State Trooper Aaron McCabe tricks his Tlingit partner, Sergeant Robert Sable, into viewing boats for sale.  All the owners and their families had died by carbon monoxide poisoning, the silent killer, either at home or on their boats.   By accident, Sable discovers markings, a smiley face and the number 2000, on a boat’s generator exhaust stack.  Though pitted by holes and rust, Sable can tell the pipes have been sabotaged.  Holes drilled into the sleeping quarters allowed the poisonous gas to flow freely throughout the boat.   

          As Sable digs into the meaning behind the symbols, he finds the adult male victims were all bullies from Chugach High School’s graduating class of 2000.  It appears the killer is exacting revenge for bullying and abuse endured in high school.  The killer has left bodies across Alaska, Washington and Idaho, leaving no forensic trace.  Worse yet, so far all the deaths have been ruled accidental and numerous suspects had been verbally and physically abused.  As the team interviews suspects and bullies, no one wants to help find the killer.  The abused feel the killer is a hero finally evening the score.  Meager clues lead Sable and McCabe from the streets to the offices of corporate CEOs.

          It’s a race against time when Sable realizes his wife, Sue, and Cindy McCabe are Chugach High graduates and at every turn, the killer remains elusive.

Lost Legion, A Robert Sable Mystery August 2011

 

        Lost Legion is NOW out from Whiskey Creek Press. http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=919&zenid=98860bc62d24f7cdd6bd6f338530dd6f Here is an overview:

        At the Governor of Alaska’s bequest, State Trooper Captain Carl Owen pulls Tlingit Sergeant Trooper Robert Sable from his honeymoon to investigate the murders of the governor’s brother, William Landen and the brother’s friends--a famous TV archeologist, Jonathan Flint, and an archeology professor, Phillip Reed, from the University of Alaska.  Fishermen found the bodies in the middle of the Alaskan bush in a riverboat just off the Porcupine River.  The men have been killed by arrows and bullets.  The arrows are not commercially made or belong to any native group or tribe.   At the scene, Sable and his partner, Aaron McCabe, find clutched in the dead men’s hands are gold coins imprinted with the likeness of Augustus Caesar.  At first Sable believes the coins are counterfeit.   In one of the men’s hand is an ancient scroll written Latin.  None of the clues make any sense. 

        As the partners investigate the murders, they investigate several possibilities from revenge to salting archeological sites.   While visiting the deadmen’s houses, Sable and McCabe find a book on the mythology of Romans in Alaska.  Before they can interrogate one of the victim’s wives, Catherine Flint, she makes a run for it.  When she’s brought in, she reveals their husbands were looking for Roman treasure.   As proof, she shows them a gold crown embedded with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds.  In the centered of the crown was a double headed cobra symbol of Cleopatra VII Philopator.  Still, Sable can’t quite believe it Romans had visited or settled in Alaska though he knew legions made it to India and China.Sable and McCabe investigate threats against the governor, Landen’s competitors to his engineering firm and emerging Italian influence in the case. 
       The case takes them from the universities deep into the Alaska wilderness in search of the killers and gold.