BOOKS BY DENI
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DOWN FOR THE COUNT
The Sean O’Connor & Cindy Matasar Boxer Series Book 5
It seems to Sean that he can’t open a newspaper without seeing another article about a lawsuit against the Catholic Church for protecting child abusers. As a devout Catholic, the subject upsets him, and he would prefer to simply not have to deal with it. That is not an option after Sean’s eldest brother, Father John, asks for Sean’s help in Seattle. A number of priests are accused of sexually abusing children in a class action lawsuit including Father John’s mentor and boxing coach, a priest now in his nineties.
Sean and Cindy agree to get involved, and the more they learn about the suit, the more they believe they are on the wrong side. But, when the priest kills himself, it seems to be as good as a confession. That would have ended their involvement, if Sean hadn’t picked up on a clue that indicates it wasn’t suicide, but murder. Their attempts to track down a killer are hampered and frustrated by a rival investigator who files a complaint against them that might cost them their investigator’s license and things spiral out of control from there. Two more murders and they realize the need to find the killer before he finds them.
AWARD WINNER
Hungry Like A Wolf
He was getting that itch again. He always thought of it that way. Compulsion sounded far too clinical. As if he might be psycho. No, it was an itch. And it usually came this time of year, late October after a long summer season. It also came near the time of the full moon, something he had noticed several years ago. Whatever. He didn’t get it every season. Sometimes years went by. Although he had to admit, it had been close to nearly every year for the last decade or something around there. He didn’t keep track. He didn’t think of it liar except when he itched…
The Boxer Series
BELOW THE BELT
This is the first novel in the series and introduces the two co-protagonists: Sean O’Conner retired boxer and Cindy Matasar, a criminal investigator with the public defender’s office who also free-lances for the private bar. Sean is asked to look into a new boxing gym in Portland that his friend, Maybelle Preacher, has doubts about after her grandson joins it.
SUCKER PUNCHED
Cindy is assigned as the investigator to what would appear to be an open and shut case of a wife-beater killing his wife, but Cindy and the public defender lawyer assigned to it, Janet Bowers, find odd facts that point to their client being framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Since their client is a retired professional boxer, they ask Sean to look into his past to see if there is anything in it which would point to someone with a motive for framing their client for murder.
THROWING IN THE TOWEL
Sean is asked by a boxing trainer to find out why a promising teenage boxer has suddenly become morose and depressed. Before Sean gets around to doing so, the young man is found dead; an apparent suicide after having jumped off a building. Motivated by guilt, Sean convinces Cindy to leave the public defender’s office and join him in a private investigation agency with the death of Damiyun Walker as their first case.
SAVED BY THE BELL
Sean’s impression of their potential client is that he is a spoiled only child of an overly protective mother, both given to exaggeration and hyperbole. The young man in question had been fired from his job as a night janitor with a cleaning firm and after insisting on talking to his manager about it, ends up facing criminal charges for making threats. His mother wants Sean and Cindy to check with some witnesses that her son had not acted the way his ex-employer had described, and they were just out to get him because they were all a bunch of Nazis.