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BEFORE JAKE THERE WAS JIMMY...THE LONG-AWAITED PREQUEL TO THE JAKE DIAMOND SERIES

CHASING CHARLIE CHAN

Abramo's smart prose and dialogue with a dose of Raymond Chandler and a helping of James Ellroy -The Denver Review

  

 

 

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THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHASING CHARLIE CHAN BOOK COVER

                

RESURRECTING JIMMY PIGEON

                   

 

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Lenny Archer had more than a fair share of tough times and hard knocks, but he had finally decided to stay in the game rather than cash in his chips.

 

Then, two late-night intruders at the Private Investigation office of Archer and Pigeon violently take the choice of life over death out of Lenny's hands.  
    

Jimmy Pigeon is determined to discover who killed his friend and partner.  He may have to learn what became of the actor who portrayed Charlie Chan in the thirties, and who assassinated a charismatic mobster in the late-forties, before he can identify Archer's killers.  
    

LAPD Lieutenant Ray Boyle is not anxious to get tied up in the Chinese fire drill that is the Archer murder case, but he is far less inclined to get anywhere near the question of where a former Heisman Trophy winning football player was on an infamous night in June 1994.
    

Pigeon and Boyle become reluctant allies, sharing little in common beside a mutual hope that Major League Baseball can thwart a players' strike and the bad guys learn crime doesn't pay.

 

 

Dirty cops, buried secrets, mob hits and a stack of bodies--these are a few of my favorite things--and J.L. Abramo delivers them all in his new book CHASING CHARLIE CHAN. This is a fresh and modern take on the classic dead partner tale of revenge, and the plot has plenty of forward momentum. It turns out to be a complicated tale, and a satisfying read. For those familiar with Abramo's work, this is the prequel to the Jake Diamond PI series. For those not familiar with the series--never fear. Once you read CHASING CHARLIE CHAN, you'll be convinced to pick up the rest.
                                                                                                      --Crimespree Magazine

 

 

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CHASING CHARLIE CHAN TRAILER
The award-winning Jake Diamond series from the author of the acclaimed crime thriller GRAVESEND...

Clutching at Straws

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A worthy successor to Catching Water in a Net, Abramo's second in the San Francisco based Jake Diamond series is a clever and well-crafted detective novel, gritty enough to satisfy hard-boiled readers but not so dark that it will put off more traditional mystery fans. Hired to break into a local judge's house and extract money and papers from a wall safe, Lefty Wright, a small-time thief, stumbles over the judge's corpse and is immediately surrounded by police. Wright calls Diamond from prison, where he awaits trial for murder, and convinces the PI of his innocence. As Diamond proceeds with his investigation, the police, the governor and especially prosecuting attorney and DA candidate Lowell Ryder all make it very clear that they don't want him involved. When Wright is killed 'trying to escape' en route to court, things get really interesting. Scrambling to make a case, Diamond trails crooked cops and even resurrects his dormant acting career to appear in a bit part in a movie to get close to a key suspect. Throughout the book, Diamond is reading Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, which parallels his current case.

-Publishers Weekly

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Counting to Infinity​

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The scent of deep-fried calamari floated in through my office window like an invitation to triple bypass surgery.  I could almost have tasted the squid if not for the Camel non-filter dangling from my lip.  So reads the first lines of the third novel in the acclaimed Jake Diamond private eye series and if you like your noir detective fiction in the glorious tradition of Raymond Chandler, you are going to love Counting to Infinity by J. L. Abramo.

-Denis Hamill, New York Daily News

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San Francisco private investigator Jake Diamond is so much in the mold of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, you can practically hear Hammett and Chandler muttering from the great beyond about copyright infringement.

-David Lazarus, San Francisco Chronicle

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Catching Water in a Net​

NOW AVAILABLE IN TRADE PAPERBACK FOR THE FIRST TIME...

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The debut Jake Diamond murder mystery... winner of the St. Martin's Press/Private Eye Writers of America Award for Best First Private Eye Novel...

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Meet Jake Diamond, a San Francisco PI who is more over-easy than hard-boiled, needs lots of help but is afraid to ask, has a very difficult time keeping his neckties stain free, guzzles bourbon and antacid with equal ineffectiveness, and can't get enough of Dickens and Dumas.

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Jake runs between San Francisco and Los Angeles trying to discover who killed his friend and mentor, Jimmy Pigeon.  With the assistance of his trusty and sarcastic associate Darlene Roman, compulsive gambler Vinnie 'Strings' Stradivarius and Italian-American 'businessman' Joey Russo; Diamond slowly uncovers the motives behind Pigeon's death. Along the way, Jake trips over the bodies of several other hapless victims, dodges mob hit men and over-zealous police detectives, and finds the case swimming with characters from his past.

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