Books in series
#1
The Lonely Hunter
The Lt. Hastings Mysteries
1969
In the underworld of San Francisco, a broken cop searches for his daughter. Seven years ago, Frank Hastings quit on his family. After a half-baked pro football career, he had fallen in love with the bottle and needed to go west. In San Francisco, he got sober, and now he's one of the toughest police officers around, in a city whose counterculture does not make life easy for the men in blue. San Francisco in 1969 is an ugly place, torn apart by drugs and crime and indifference - and it's about to destroy Hastings' daughter. Claudia comes to town following a boy, a hippie kid who has filled her head with dreams of psychedelic happiness in Haight-Ashbury - and she quickly vanishes into the district's rainbow-colored underbelly. To find the daughter he abandoned, Hastings will push himself closer to the edge than he has in years. His first lead is a gruesome one - a young male flower child slaughtered in the Haight - but the bloody trail may lead to Claudia.
#2
The Disappearance
1970
Now that he's made Lieutenant, Frank Hastings assigns routine cases to his subordinates. He saves for himself the puzzlers, like the disappearance of a prominent woman. She is Carol Connelly, wife and mother, rich and elegant, from a family that leans on the mayor for action. Solving the case is politically expedient, but Hastings is stumped. Mrs. Connelly doesn't fit the victim profile. Those close to her say she's cool, aggressive...a predator. Hastings is under pressure to find her...dead or alive. "Boils with life...complex and involving." (Ross MacDonald, author of Archer At Large)
#3
Dead Aim
The Lt. Hastings Mysteries
1971
A pair of murders leaves Hastings torn between following his orders and listening to his gut. After nearly a decade as a San Francisco cop, Frank Hastings is becoming something of a stranger to kindness. He feels perfectly at home in the Draper household - a rundown Victorian not far from the streets on which he grew up - where a social worker has been beaten to death by a man hiding in the bushes. The crime looks like a mugging, but something in the husband's manner tells Hastings there are secrets hidden in this shabby middle-class home. He's closing in on the answers when a double homicide in posh Pacific Heights draws his attention away. Fearing bad publicity, his superiors tell him to drop everything and focus on this new killing, but Hastings can't get his mind off the death of Susan Draper. As he divides his time between the two murders, Hastings finds that for a man at home with cruelty, kindness can be terrifying.
#4
Hiding Place
1973
How well do parents know their children? Mrs. Towers thought her daughter June was a good girl. Why, then, did the pretty teen turn up dead atop a rubbish heap in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park? Had she gone there to rendezvous with her killer? Had she always done what mother said?Lt. Frank Hastings has some answers and some obvious suspects, but not all of either. He keeps digging, and it's a good thing. There's more to this than a wayward girl, as a second murder confirms. It's up to Hastings to stop a third.
"Involves you like (Dashiell) Hammett does." (Ross MacDonald)
#5
Long Way Down
1974
Lt. Frank Hastings gets a case that has all the material to create a colorful tableau of murder. Thomas King, film maker, wealthy but profligate, ends up slashed and dead in the apartment of a girl who poses nude by day and sells sex by night. A trail of evidence leads to Arnold Clark. It figures: Clark has a rap sheet a mile-long—and he's been keeping King's wife company.
Case closed? Not quite. A second murder introduces contradictory new evidence. Now Hastings has to rework the entire puzzle to come up with a finished portrait of a crime—with no pieces left over.
"Wilcox shuffles the plot and characters for the sheer joy of confounding us. Great detective fun." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)
#7
Doctor, Lawyer…
1975
Lt. Frank Hastings finds a killer's extortion notes on the victims, each note successively asking for more money. Tons of evidence turns up at the murder scenes, but it points back to San Francisco cops. Before the bloodletting ends, Hastings looks death in the eye. It all comes down to a final moment when quickness counts and luck calls the last shot.
#8
The Watcher
1978
On a fishing trip with his estranged son, Hastings comes under attack
Lieutenant Frank Hastings checks his gun at airport security so he can meet his son the moment the boy gets off the plane in San Francisco. After a year apart, he finds Darrell to be as moody and withdrawn as any other teenager, and prays that a fishing trip will bring them closer together. He is unaware that he and Darrell are about to experience the sort of bonding that only terror can provide.
Before setting off on their vacation, they arrive at Hastings' apartment to find that a prowler has been lurking, but managed to escape before the police got there. When they reach the lakeside cabin, the watcher is already waiting, ready to take revenge on Hastings by targeting his child. To survive the ordeal, Hastings will have to trust Darrell in ways he never expected, and Darrell will have to become a man.
#9
Twospot
1978
Pronzini and Wilcox combine their superlative talents—and their two popular San Francisco-based detectives, "Nameless" and Lieutenant Frank Hastings—on a harrowing case of murder and bizarre conspiracy surrounding an old California wine-making family.
#11
Mankiller
1980
The night Rebecca Carlton was murdered, the world of rock'n'roll stood still. She was the lead singer of Pure Power, and she had it all—fame, talent, wealth. But after the media fanfare subsides, Lieutenant Frank Hastings, San Francisco Homicide, has a job to do. Who killed Rebecca? And why? Was it revenge? Jealousy? Her millions in royalties? Or was her murder somehow connected to the mysterious death of her father, a famous novelist, less than a year before? Under the glare of publicity, Hastings searches for the killer in a sea of celebrities."Collin Willcox is San Francisco's gift to the police procedural." (San Francisco Chronicle)
#12
Stalking Horse
1982
A senator's life is in danger - and anyone in San Francisco could be a killer.
Senate majority leader Donald Ryan is a kingmaker, with the power to make or break presidencies, and the ability to reshape the country with a flick of his pen. He is also a very sick man, recovering from a heart attack that must be kept secret at all costs. But when a series of death threats jeopardizes his planned return to public life, the FBI calls in San Francisco police lieutenant Frank Hastings to find the would-be assassin. He has one week until the senator's next public appearance - and hundreds of thousands of possible suspects.
Because Ryan's recent heart attack is considered a state secret, Hastings is forced to withhold crucial details from his fellow detectives. Any degree of stress could stop the senator's fragile heart, which means that even if a bullet misses, the sound of the gunshot might be enough to kill him. To save the lawmaker, Hastings may have to put himself in the line of fire.
#14
Night Games
1986
Lt. Frank Hastings of the Homicide department, investigates the murder of James Haney, who was apparently killed when he surprised a burglar in the midst of a robbery
#15
The Pariah
1988
A pious killer stalks the Tenderloin, hunting streetwalkers in the name of the Lord.
After years of turning tricks and shooting junk, Amy has reached the end of the line. Heroin has wrecked her body, and her pimp is contemplating cutting her loose when she takes a client to the Bayside Hotel. The john asks her to turn around and undress, and as she slips out of her clothes for the thousandth time, he places his hands around her neck and starts to squeeze.
San Francisco Homicide does not rush to investigate the death of a hooker. Although Lieutenant Frank Hastings does his due diligence, he has no expectation of finding Amy's killer. But when the trail leads him to the son of a famous TV evangelist, he realizes that the case may be even tougher than he expected. Elton Holloway is a fanatically religious young man - but does he love God enough to kill?
#16
A Death Before Dying
1990
An old friend is murdered, and Hastings will do anything he can to avenge her.
When Frank Hastings knew Meredith Powell, she was a gawky 10-year-old without a care in the world. More than two decades later, she has grown into a stunning beauty - but the gleam in her eye is gone. Over lunch, Meredith confesses that she lives in terror of her emotionally abusive boyfriend, a possessive, rage-filled man named Charles. Hastings, a homicide lieutenant with the San Francisco police department, offers to help her escape. She refuses, and they part ways - unaware that Charles has been watching them the whole time.
By the next morning, Meredith has been strangled, her body dumped in the park. The realization that he could have helped her, that he may actually have caused her death, tears Hastings to pieces. Obsessed with revenge, he quickly learns why homicide detectives are prevented from investigating the murders of their loved ones. But he will not rest until Charles is brought to justice - even if it costs him his badge.
#17
Hire a Hangman
1991
The murder of an adulterous physician, Dr. Brice Hanchett, head of Barrington Medical Center's renowned transplant surgical team, leads Lt. Frank Hastings to an unexpected number of suspects, until the killing of a prime suspect further complicates the case
#18
Dead Center
1992
Tony Frazer, a millionaire playboy, tries to sidestep a panhandler. To Frazer's amazement, the man whispers his name. . .then pumps two bullets dead center through his chest.Frank Hastings, a veteran police lieutenant, knows it's not a casual killing. Then others are killed in the same way. All are men, all wealthy and powerful. And all are shot with a silenced .22 automatic. Can Hastings pull together the threads that link them and snare the murderer?
"Finely honed and richly textured, a story that gets under your skin." (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
#19
Switchback
1993
1st edition Henry Holt 1995 paperback, fine In stock shipped from our UK warehouse
Authors
Bill Pronzini
Author · 111 books
Mystery Writers of America Awards "Grand Master" 2008 Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1999) for Boobytrap Edgar Awards Best Novel nominee (1998) for A Wasteland of Strangers Shamus Awards Best Novel nominee (1997) for Sentinels Shamus Awards "The Eye" (Lifetime achievment award) 1987 Shamus Awards Best Novel winner (1982) for Hoodwink Married to author Marcia Muller. Pseudonyms: Robert Hart Davis (collaboration with Jeffrey M. Wallmann) Jack Foxx William Jeffrey (collaboration with Jeffrey M. Wallmann) Alex Saxon
Collin Wilcox
Author · 19 books
Aka Carter Wick Collin Wilcox was an American mystery writer. Born in Detroit, Michigan, his first book was The Black Door (1967), featuring a sleuth possessing extrasensory perception. His major series of novels was about Lieutenant Frank Hastings of the San Francisco Police Department. Titles in the Hastings series included Hire a Hangman, Dead Aim, Hiding Place, Long Way Down and Stalking Horse. Two of his last books, Full Circle and Find Her a Grave, featured a new hero-sleuth, Alan Bernhardt, an eccentric theater director. Wilcox also published under the pseudonym "Carter Wick". Wilcox's most famous series-detective was the television character Sam McCloud, a New Mexico deputy solving New York crime. The "urban cowboy" was played by Dennis Weaver in the 1970-1977 TV series McCloud. Wilcox wrote three novelizations based on scripts from the series: McCloud (1973), The New Mexican Connection (1974), and The Park Avenue Executioner (1975).
