Lew Fonesca

Series · 6 books · 1999-2009

By Stuart M. Kaminsky

Books in series

Vengeance

1999

The painful past resurfaces for investigator Lew Fonesca when he agrees to check into the disappearance of the wife of Carl Sebastian, a client of one of the attorney's Lew works for, and becomes involved in the case of a missing runaway teenager. Reprint.

Retribution

2001

Stuart M. Kaminsky, the veteran author of more than forty novels and the creator of such wonderful characters as Abe Lieberman, Toby Peters, and Inpsector Rostnikov, has created a new PI: Lew Fonesca, a world-weary guy who got in a car and just started driving after his wife died and wound up in front of a Dairy Queen in Sarasota, Florida. He now makes his way amid bail jumpers and lost wives, people who want to be found and those who will do anything to stay under their rock. He spends his days solving cases both big and small and trying to get by, while attempting to figure out how to make the rest of his life make sense. Retribution not only picks up where the first novel in the series, Vengeance, left off, but raises the bar big-time. Lew has solved his share of cases, and most of them-to his pride-have wound up having happy endings; in Vengeance, he saved a young runaway who has had a childhood nobody should ever have, and she finally seems to be turning her life around. But when she becomes involved with a reclusive best selling author and several valuable manuscripts disappear, Lew knows that young Melanie is in way over her head. And if he doesn't act fast, not only could a few reputations get tarnished—the bodies might start piling up.

Midnight Pass

2003

Lew Fonesca is a guy just trying to get along. When his wife died in a senseless auto wreck, he got up and left his old life—and when his car gave out in sunny Sarasota, Florida, he stayed. He takes small process-serving gigs and various odd jobs helping people out, and he tries, although maybe not as hard as he should, to fix the gaping hole in his heart. But for a man who just wants to ease through life without any complications, Lew has a pretty full plate. The shrink that Lew's been seeing for more than a year wants him to finally dump all the grief that he's carrying around so he can have more than a half-life. And Sally, the pretty single mom and social worker who has helped Lew in the past, wants to deepen their friendship. On top of that, a local minister asks him to find a town council member who has gone missing just before a crucial vote that could ruin a struggling community, and a distraught father comes to Lew to track down his wife and two kids, whom Lew suspects ran off with the man's best friend. When people start showing up dead, Lew knows he's in way over his head—and this time he may not be able make it all come out okay.

Denial

2005

Lew Fonesca is a man who does things for people. He makes small problems go away and tries to keep the larger ones from landing his clients in jail. He finds deadbeats, errant spouses, and generally keeps the populace of Sarasota on the up and up. Now Lew is faced with one case that will try his patience...and another that may break his heart. The first involves an elderly woman who swears she's witnessed a murder in her old age home despite the fact that everyone she tells her story to: her family, the hospital staff, and finally the cops all tell her that it just couldn't have happened. The other has Lew trying to find out the identity of a hit and run driver who killed a 14 year old boy. This task dredges up old memories and a lot of pain, for Lew fled Chicago years ago, after a drunk driver killed his beloved wife. As Lew begins to dig deeper into both cases he finds that they are tied together in ways he can't hope to untangle. And when someone tries to run him down, Lew knows that he's getting close to some nasty home truths and he is going to have get the answers if he is to survive.

Always Say Goodbye

2006

Four years ago, Lew Fonesca’s wife Catherine was struck and killed in a hit-and-run. Grief-stricken, he fled Chicago and wound up in Sarasota, Florida where he’s made a living as a process server. Four years on, he's still savoring his depression like fine wine, and his therapist—and sparring partner—has had enough. It's time, she tells Lew, to get on with his life. Time to go back to Chicago and find out what really happened to his wife. Lew hates to admit it, but Ann Horowitz might be right. Even if it kills him, he has to know the truth about his wife's death. So he returns to his home, his family, his friends—and a mystery. He's resolved to dig until he finds out who killed his wife. In doing so, he'll uncover both sweet and painful memories of his past. He'll also confront a murderer who'll not hesitate to kill again to make sure hidden secrets stay buried.

Bright Futures

2009

"Lew Fonesca is a sad sack of a man, a guy who lost his wife in a tragic hit-and-run accident in Chicago four years ago and then literally drove away from his life. Now settled in Sarasota, he does small-time criminal investigations and marinates in his well-nurtured gloom. But to his friends and the people he's helped, Lew is a caring man who does all he can to see that justice is done ... even if it means bending the letter, if not the spirit, of the law." "A local curmudgeon who has been campaigning to end state-sponsored school funding is brutally killed. The accused, a recent graduate of a public high school for the gifted, turns to Lew for help. A semiretired and much beloved performer of children's songs is being anonymously threatened with exposure as a sexual predator. He turns to Lew to find out who is behind this false accusation." As Lew works on these baffling cases, he slowly comes to realize that somewhere along the way he has managed to pick up what looks like the beginning of a new life: people who care about him, people whom, he grudgingly admits, he is beginning to care about. But the good life that Lew so richly deserves might disappear when he's forced to come to a hard choice - do the right thing and see his happiness evaporate, or betray a trust and be happy.

Author

Stuart M. Kaminsky

Author · 68 books

Stuart M. Kaminsky wrote 50 published novels, 5 biographies, 4 textbooks and 35 short stories. He also has screenwriting credits on four produced films including ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, ENEMY TERRITORY, A WOMAN IN THE WIND and HIDDEN FEARS. He was a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and was nominated for six prestigious Edgar Allen Poe Awards including one for his short story “Snow” in 1999. He won an Edgar for his novel A COLD RED SUNRISE, which was also awarded the Prix De Roman D’Aventure of France. He was nominated for both a Shamus Award and a McCavity Readers Choice Award. Kaminsky wrote several popular series including those featuring Lew Fonesca, Abraham Lieberman, Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, and Toby Peters. He also wrote two original "Rockford Files " novels. He was the 50th annual recipient of the Grandmaster 2006 for Lifetime Achievement from the Mystery Writers of America. Received the Shamus Award, "The Eye" (Lifetime achievement award) in 2007. His nonfiction books including BASIC FILMMAKING, WRITING FOR TELEVISION, AMERICAN FILM GENRES, and biographies of GARY COOPER, CLINT EASTWOOD, JOHN HUSTON and DON SIEGEL. BEHIND THE MYSTERY was published by Hot House Press in 2005 and nominated by Mystery Writers of America for Best Critical/Biographical book in 2006. Kaminsky held a B.S. in Journalism and an M.A. in English from The University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in Speech from Northwestern University where he taught for 16 years before becoming a Professor at Florida State. where he headed the Graduate Conservatory in Film and Television Production. He left Florida State in 1994 to pursue full-time writing. Kaminsky and his wife, Enid Perll, moved to St. Louis, Missouri in March 2009 to await a liver transplant to treat the hepatitis he contracted as an army medic in the late 1950s in France. He suffered a stroke two days after their arrival in St. Louis, which made him ineligible for a transplant. He died on October 9, 2009.