Set at the time of the North Sea oil boom, The Big Payoff marks the debut of Anna Peters, the witty, cynical character Booklist called "among the most complex, fully drawn female leads in crime fiction" and whom the New York Times lauded for her "sweetly unscrupulous deals".In The Big Payoff, Peters is employed in the research department of New World Oil Company, a position that suits this now reformed blackmailer. Happy with her lover, Harry, Anna has abandoned the seductive intellectual and psychological game of blackmail for the straight and narrow.But mysterious deaths among New World's British contacts convince Anna that something is wrong in the executive suite. Worse, she is soon blackmailed by a British secret service agent who's following the same trail.Anna reluctantly bugs her boss' phone and copies company files, but when her British contact turns up dead, Anna finds that sheand Harryare in mortal danger. Her old skills come in handy as she tries to keep ahead of ruthless killers, first in Washington, D.C. and then in the north of Scotland.The Big Payoff has been issued in British, Danish and Japanese editions and was a selection of the Detective Book Club. It was an Edgar Award nominee.Look for more of Janice Law's Anna Peters mysteries to become available in the near future.

Anna Peters, the unorthodox New World Oil Company researcher, learns the price of the good research job she obtained after her successful adventures in The Big Payoff. The Chairman of the Board wants her to do a little track down Crystal Blythe, a feckless young woman soon to inherit the lion's share of New World stock. Crystal and her twin brother Edward have been living in France, and Anna is dispatched on a working holiday to locate the missing girl.Paris, art, culture, great food-the trip sounds terrific. Unfortunately for Anna and her artist lover Harry Radford, the young Blythes have gotten themselves into bad company, including gun runners and espionage agents from two countries. Anna learns she can't trust the charming and talented Blythes, and wonders if they can even trust each other.

Anna Peters, the unorthodox New World Oil Company researcher, gets tapped for a delicate mission to pre-unification collect an East German oil chemist who has discovered how to separate oil from sea water. If genuine, the new process means huge profits. Philip McKenzie, New World Oil’s brilliant chief chemist, assures Anna and her boss that everything is on the level. Anna thinks this may be too good to be true, and when she and McKenzie arrive in Germany she finds out that fraud is the least of her worries. The German chemist and his thuggish brother have their own agendas and some very nasty skills. And the gifted, mercurial Philip Mckenzie has a bad habit—putting himself, and Anna, in danger.

A call from Henry Brammin, Anna Peters’s old mentor at New World Oil, sends the proprietor of Executive Security down to Florida’s Gulf Coast for a brief working vacation. Brammin wants to know why his nephew suddenly has money for an expensive sailboat and a fancy antiques shop. The answers involve Vlad Sebastian, a wealthy and reclusive art collector with a socially ambitious daughter, a questionable past, and some dubious employees. Anna’s efforts to discover if Brammin’s nephew is one of them brings danger both to her and another old friend, the newly sober and newly married John Hillary, the reporter last seen in The Big Payoff . Hillary, who has his own interests in the mysterious Mr. Sebastian, provides entree to the Sebastians’ glamorous social circle—and provokes a variety of domestic complications. Anna’s attempt at a vacation is soon in ruins, as she and John Hillary find there are plenty of reptiles in the lush and glamorous gardens of south Florida.

Hired to investigate the death of an action/adventure movie star, Anna Peters explores the actor's latest production site and finds that the truth is about as exciting as the victim's scripts. Reprint.

Backfire by Janice Law released on Mar 25, 1996 is available now for purchase.

Private investigator Anna Peters is not convinced about her client's innocence when she agrees to help hockey star Jurgen Parks clear himself of his teammate's murder, and when she arrives in Florida to start work, she must find out fast who is telling the truth.