This image is the cover for the book Vengeance, The Lew Fonesca Mysteries

Vengeance, The Lew Fonesca Mysteries

“The debut of a new series featuring Sunshine State investigator Lew Fonesca. It’s an intriguing tale, with a captivating detective.” —January Magazine

Three years ago, Lew Fonseca quit his job as a process server with the State Attorney’s Office in Cook County, Illinois, and drove his rattling Toyota south to escape the memories of his beloved late wife. Headed for Key West, the Toyota broke down in a Dairy Queen parking lot in Sarasota, Florida. Buoyed by the friendship of a few trustworthy souls, Lew settled there, making ends meet by doing some investigative work for local attorneys.

Now, Lew is hired by Carl Sebastian, one of Lew’s lawyer’s clients, to find his missing wife. Following up on a few leads, Lew finds himself being trailed by a mysterious burly man, and saddled with another missing person case—this time a runaway teen. With the help of some friends, Lew seems to be getting closer and closer to Melanie—but will he find her before the unthinkable happens?

“Staked with vivid characters and plenty of local color . . . Lew has a real future ahead of him.” —The New York Times Book Review

“The versatile and prolific Kaminsky introduces his fifth series hero, Lew Fonesca, in this outstanding mystery . . . With an early hook, he grabs readers and takes them on a memorably tumultuous ride of violent dips and turns, careening from Sarasota’s most squalid shacks to its richest condos.” —Publishers Weekly

“Kaminsky surrounds him with a unique, carefully drawn cast of secondary characters . . . Readers will be demanding the sequel before they’ve finished the debut.” —Booklist

Stuart M. Kaminsky

Stuart M. Kaminsky (1934–2009) was one of the most prolific crime fiction authors of the last four decades. Born in Chicago, he spent his youth immersed in pulp fiction and classic cinema—two forms of popular entertainment which he would make his life’s work. After college and a stint in the army, Kaminsky wrote film criticism and biographies of the great actors and directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age. In 1977, when a planned biography of Charlton Heston fell through, Kaminsky wrote Bullet for a Star, his first Toby Peters novel, beginning a fiction career that would last the rest of his life. Kaminsky penned twenty-four novels starring the detective, whom he described as “the anti-Philip Marlowe.” In 1981’s Death of a Dissident, Kaminsky debuted Moscow police detective Porfiry Rostnikov, whose stories were praised for their accurate depiction of Soviet life. His other two series starred Abe Lieberman, a hardened Chicago cop, and Lew Fonseca, a process server. In all, Kaminsky wrote more than sixty novels. He died in St. Louis in 2009. 

Tom Doherty Associates