Photo © Eric P. Mull
Les Roberts
Les Roberts is the author of 14 mystery novels featuring Cleveland detective Milan Jacovich, as well as 9 other books of fiction. The past president of both the Private Eye Writers of America and the American Crime Writer's League, he came to mystery writing after a 24-year career in Hollywood. He was the first producer and head writer of the Hollywood Squares and wrote for the Andy Griffith Show, the Jackie Gleason Show, and the Man from U.N.C.L.E., among others. He has been a professional actor, a singer, a jazz musician, and a teacher. In 2003 he received the Sherwood Anderson Literary Award. A native of Chicago, he now lives in Northeast Ohio.
Les Roberts's Web Site:
- LesRoberts.com: www.lesroberts.com
Books by Les Roberts
Pepper Pike
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#1)
by Les Roberts
1 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
Introducing Milan Jacovich (pronounced MY-lan YOCK-ovich), Cleveland's favorite private eye.
Milan, an ex-cop, Vietnam veteran, and former football player, is a private investigator with a master's degree, a taste for . . . [Read More]
Full Cleveland
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#2)
by Les Roberts
2 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
Polyester leisure suit, white patent leather shoes, matching white belt— that 1970s fashion statement was once unkindly dubbed the “ full Cleveland.” And no one wears it with more flair and panache than Buddy . . . [Read More]
Deep Shaker
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#3)
by Les Roberts
3 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
No one is as loyal to old friends as Cleveland private investigator Milan Jacovich (it's pronounced MY-lan YOCK-ovich). So when a grade school chum worries his son Paulie might be selling . . . [Read More]
The Cleveland Connection
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#4)
by Les Roberts
4 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
Private investigator Milan Jacovich (it's pronounced MY-lan YOCK-ovich) is Slovenian-American, but he's familiar with the varied ethnic groups that make up the city of Cleveland. An elderly Serbian man has . . . [Read More]
The Lake Effect
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#5)
by Les Roberts
5 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
Every Clevelander understands the lake effect, a weather condition that brings plenty of snow, especially in November when election time rolls around.
Milan Jacovich (it's pronounced MY-lan YOCK-ovich), the genial Cleveland . . . [Read More]
The Duke of Cleveland
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#6)
by Les Roberts
6 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
“ The wonderful thing about art is that it doesn't really have to do anything . . . All that is asked of it is that it be beautiful. It doesn't work that way with people.”
So . . . [Read More]
Collision Bend
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#7)
by Les Roberts
7 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
Private investigator Milan Jacovich (it's pronounced MY-lan YOCK-ovich) goes behind the scenes to uncover scandal, ambition, and intrigue at one of Cleveland's top TV stations as he hunts down the stalker . . . [Read More]
The Cleveland Local
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#8)
by Les Roberts
8 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
Hotshot young Cleveland lawyer Joel Kerner is shotgunned to death on a lonely beach on the Caribbean island of San Carlos. The local police are inept, and the Cleveland cops can't operate outside . . . [Read More]
A Shoot in Cleveland
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#9)
by Les Roberts
9 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
Hollywood producer Sidney Friedman has chosen Cleveland as the location for his new hope-to-be-blockbuster film, Street Games.
The “ shoot” is just getting underway, and the film's star is the movie . . . [Read More]
The Best-Kept Secret
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#10)
by Les Roberts
10 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
Everyone has secrets. But college freshman Jason Crowell is especially guarded when an anonymous feminist organization on campus publicly accuses him of date rape. Jason proclaims his innocence but has no idea who . . . [Read More]
The Indian Sign
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#11)
by Les Roberts
11 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
Veteran private eye Milan Jacovich (it's pronounced MY-lan YOCK-ovitch) is rarely surprised. But his attention is grabbed one day by a Native American man wearing traditional clothing and waist-length, iron . . . [Read More]
The Dutch
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#12)
by Les Roberts
12 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
In street parlance, “ the dutch” is another expression for suicide. That's what everyone assumes happened to Ellen Carnine when her broken body is found 150 feet below the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge in downtown . . . [Read More]
The Irish Sports Pages
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#13)
by Les Roberts
13 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
A slick con man, posing as a recent immigrant from County Mayo all alone in America, is preying on the clannish loyalties of the Irish community in Cleveland for gifts, money, and other . . . [Read More]
King of the Holly Hop
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#14)
by Les Roberts
Now in paperback, #14 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
Going to your high school reunion is never fun. But this time, it's murder.
When Cleveland private eye Milan Jacovich reluctantly attends the fortieth reunion of his St. Clair High . . . [Read More]
The Cleveland Creep
A Milan Jacovich Mystery (#15)
by Les Roberts
15 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .
A simple missing-person case gets complicated when Milan Jacovich (it's pronounced MY-lan YOCK-ovich) discovers that 28-year-old Earl Dacey left behind a strange collection of voyeuristic videos in his . . . [Read More]
We'll Always Have Cleveland
A Memoir of a Novelist and a City
by Les Roberts
When novelist and television producer Les Roberts arrived in Cleveland from Los Angeles for a short-term consulting job in 1986, he wasn't entirely prepared. It was January, and he'd brought no overcoat, no boots. That chilly Northeast Ohio surprise . . . [Read More]