Homicide 69
Chicago, the long, hot summer of 1969.
Apollo 11, Woodstock, Chappaquiddick, the Manson murders.
And the war in Vietnam, grinding on.
Chicago homicide detective Mike Dooley catches the brutal murder of a young woman, a mobster’s girlfriend. When a dubious confession closes the case, Dooley refuses to let it go. His dogged suspicion that this is more than a sex killing leads him into the deep waters of mob intrigue and political corruption. Dooley has no illusions about the quality of justice; all he has is his integrity. With his son in the thick of the fighting in Vietnam and the world he grew up in coming down around his ears, Dooley does the only thing he knows how to do— get to work and dig till he finds the truth, even if nobody wants to hear it.
“I just finished Homicide 69. What a great book. . . . It’s nice to read a Chicago mystery that I can honestly say I loved front to back. The cops were right. The corruption was spot on. The geography was perfect, which is almost unheard of.”
—Jack Clark
“Homicide 69 is much more than a conventional crime novel. . . . It is, at heart, the story of one lone man, struggling against seemingly impossible odds, to do the right thing and to achieve one very small measure of justice in a world gone mad.
It’s a story brilliantly told. Reaves has captured perfectly the tenor of the time in which the story is set and he has created an absolutely riveting protagonist in Mike Dooley.”
—James L. Thane
Dooley’s Back
Dooley’s back in town after eight years in Mexico, and he doesn’t like what he sees. Dooley used to be a cop, but the system failed him; after taking the law into his own hands, Dooley had to take off. Now he wants to come home, but things have changed. Dooley’s old partner Roy has a gambling problem, and a cop with a gambling problem means a cop with a mob problem. Dooley’s going to try to make everything right again, but he’s going to find that playing God is not as easy as it seems.
Freeze
In 2003, Kevin Dooley is the head of the Chicago Police Department’s cold case squad. Tasked with re-investigating a 17-year old cop killing after the man originally convicted is exonerated and released, Dooley needs a good investigator with South Side experience on his team. Detective Linda Washington, who knows the territory, needs a new partner. Together they take on the impossible task, with the coldest of trails to follow. The quest takes them deep into Chicago’s vast South Side to uncover decades-old secrets, and as they stir the ashes a cold case becomes a heater case that will test their professional and personal relationship.“Freeze sounds like Chicago, feels like Chicago, is Chicago. The world-weary cops, the cold case, and the uneasy partnership between Dooley and Washington just puts the yellow mustard on top of the hotdog. Solid read. Check it out.”
—Tracy Clark, award-winning author of the Cass Raines and Det. Harriet Foster series.
“No one writes a better police procedural than Sam Reaves. Reaves’s knowledge of Chicago and the police department are first rate and the characters are so real they jump off the pages. Don’t miss Freeze. You won’t be able to put it down.”
—Michael A. Black, award winning author of Where Legends Lie, Legends of the West, Retribution Trail, and the Executioner series (Writing as Don Pendleton).
Stand Alones
Cold Black Earth
Illinois farm girl Rachel Lindstrom joined the State Department to see the world. Now, worn down by service in a war zone and a painful divorce, all she wants is to come home and rest.
At home, however, there is little comfort. Her brother struggles to run the family farm and handle a hell-raising son. Meanwhile, Rachel’s arrival draws a pair of rival suitors: her brother’s handsome friend and a rough-hewn sheriff’s deputy who pined for her in high school.
When a deranged killer escapes from a local prison, the far-flung farmsteads go on high alert—especially when the bodies start turning up. And in a county where the miles outnumber the people, it soon becomes clear that the madman is close behind Rachel.
Running in the Dark
Self-exiled from Manhattan after a personal tragedy, Abby Markstein takes a teaching job at a small college in the heart of darkest Indiana. While out for a pre-dawn jog, she comes upon a car consumed by flames. The only thing more horrifying than the dead man at the wheel is the live one smiling at her in the livid glow of the fire.
More killings follow, as Abby realizes that somebody is watching her. She’s going to learn more than she wants to know about small-town secrets while coming to grips with her own personal demons.
Mean Town Blues
Survivor of a sad family history in Kentucky and bitter fighting in Iraq, Tommy McLain places his faith in a beat-up blue Chevy and his future in the city of Chicago.
There’s work there, and there’s also Lisa DiPietro. She’s pretty, openhearted, with dark eyes you could drown in. She’s also being stalked, by a creep who sticks to the shadows except when he’s inside her apartment.
Tommy figures he’ll scare the creep off. Only he does more than that, and he inadvertently sets off a gangland war that will catch him in the crossfire between two mob bosses and tangle him in the operations of an FBI special task force.
Everyone wants a piece of Tommy, and to survive he’s going to need all the resources that got him through the bad times in Iraq. Because everyone in this mean town, it seems, wants to take Tommy’s future away from him.
Cooper MacLeish
Originally published in the early nineties, Sam’s five novels featuring Chicago cabbie Cooper MacLeish, a Vietnam vet with a nose for trouble, put Sam on the map as a crime writer.
A Long Cold Fall
“Gritty…brutal…fiercer than the wind that knifes in from Lake Michigan… a smartly paced mystery, full of terse, adrenalized action and punchy writing.” People “Smashing…credible…satisfying…new voices are always welcome, and Sam Reaves’ first mystery is an exemplary beginning.” Los Angeles Times Book Review “Sam Reaves is too good, he makes me nervous. A LONG COLD FALL is as hard and muscular as the early Hammett, and as full of promise.” Robert B. Parker A lifetime ago, Vietnam vet and Chicago cab driver Cooper MacLeish shared a night of passion with beautiful Vivian Horstmann. And now she’s dead– just another police statistic in a violent, heartless town. Though the cops call Vivian’s long, cold fall from her twenty-third floor apartment window a suicide, Cooper has his doubts– especially when a nameless killer lurking in the shadows is eager to silence the overly inquisitive cabby as permanently as possible. Now Cooper will need all his war-honed skills to survive in the urban jungle– and to save Vivian’s boy…a frightened teenager who might be his son.
Fear Will Do It
“Gritty, fast-paced… seamy… satisfying” Publishers Weekly “Strong escapist fare… hurtles on with satisfying conviction” Kirkus Reviews Vietnam vet Cooper MacLeish has a good job pushing a hack around Chicago—and the love of a beautiful Caribbean lady named Diana. But Diana has a past she never shared with him. And now that past has come calling in the person of Tommy Thorne—a small-change rocker with a pocketful of bad intentions.. and enough incriminating evidence to coerce Diana’s cooperation. But when Tommy’s master plan to sting a porno kingpin explodes in a hail of blood and bullets, it’s Cooper who’s caught in the crossfire. Cooper doesn’t know the rules and can only guess at the players. But he knows the stakes, for both himself and Diana: win, or lose.. everything.
Bury it Deep
After agreeing to accompany his newspaper reporter friend Melvin Moreland on an evening drive, Cooper is drawn into a circle of corruption as wide and deep as Lake Michigan. Moreland’s beat covers nothing more risky than the occasional city hall press conference, yet when an old source comes out of the woodwork and promises to deliver a tale of some very dirty deeds, Moreland sees the makings of his first big scoop. But when he receives an anonymous phone call suggesting he consider leaving well enough alone, Moreland knows he needs Cooper, if only to provide moral support. But Cooper discovers more than either he or Moreland bargained for in an abandoned Streets and San garage. Drawn into battle against the Chicago political machine, Cooper and Moreland together uncover behind-the-scenes double-dealing involving the next candidate for mayor, the local Teamsters, and a mysteriously incriminating tape that no one wants found.
Get What’s Coming
Even with his cab-driving days now only a memory, MacLeish doesn’t need to look for danger; it finds him. In Get What’s Coming, Cooper is newly married to longtime girlfriend Diana and gainfully employed as chauffeur for the very well-heeled Regis Swanson, a powerful Chicago real estate developer. Cooper seems to have found his comfort zone—until Swanson’s son Nate is shot at the Blue Angel, the hot nightclub he manages and where the elder Swanson himself is a silent partner. The cops say drug deal gone bad, but Cooper doesn’t buy it. All too familiar with society’s ragged edges and unable to stand by as Regis Swanson’s life disintegrates, Cooper looks for a pattern in a tangled web of deception. Alone, he senses the connection between a misguided hit and a suitcase full of missing cash; alone he follows a trail of tips, near misses and allegations, which lead to drug money, some fast and loose DEA operatives, a belligerent labor union and a pair of anomic tourists named Turk and Ferocious Dick. Finally, Cooper will be forced to risk everything to confront the killer at the dark heart.
Stalking Horse
Stalking Horse finds Cooper out of the cab and running his own private limo service, chauffeuring wealthy clients around town in his own Mercedes. Meanwhile, Diana is in graduate school at the University of Chicago. Her new best friend is classmate Isabel Albala, the wife of a high-powered corporate lawyer. A stalker is making Isabel’s life miserable, and of course, Cooper has to get involved. But when Cooper intervenes, bad things happen, and it appears that the stalker is not what he seems. Cooper finds links to the husband’s work in a politically connected law firm downtown, but the police don’t buy it. Cooper’s on his own, and his troubleshooting skills will be tested along with his marriage as he strives to unmask the watcher in the shadows.
Non-Fiction
