The Cleveland Local

A Milan Jacovich Mystery

by Les Roberts

  • Format: Softcover, 280 pages, 5.1 x 8 inches
  • ISBN: 978-1-59851-008-9
  • Price: $13.95
Description

#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 their jurisdiction, so Kerner's sister Patrice comes to private eye Milan Jacovich (it's pronounced MY-lan YOCK-ovich) to discover the truth about her brother's murder.

Milan flies to San Carlos to investigate— a pleasant three-day working vacation that doesn't keep him from getting stabbed in an alley and rousted by a high-level international cop.

Back in Cleveland, he asks his best friend, homicide lieutenant Marko Meglich, for some unofficial help. But he runs up against Kerner's angry father, a world-famous labor attorney, along with the bevy of beautiful women Joel Kerner left behind and a powerful union leader known around town as “ The Irish.”

Milan marches forward to solve the case, though it will eventually cause him a tragic and insupportable personal loss.

Book Excerpt:
Chapter One

It doesn't matter that we've already sprung forward into daylight saving time, because the Tribe is playing night baseball at Jacobs Field, the hoods of their undershirts pulled up over their heads, making them look like ski racers. Dillard's is trumpeting their big spring sale, and it's been much more than six weeks since Punxsutawney Phil, neighboring Pennsylvania's groundhog, saw his shadow at the beginning of February. We still have little to look forward to; we know that within a few days of its turning balmy and sixtyish the temperature will soar up toward the eighties and nineties and every car window will be closed tight to keep the cooled air from escaping— and we'll have once more missed spring.

I spooned three scoops of Maxwell House into the filter basket of my Braun, opened the sports page of the Plain Dealer, and waited for my nine o'clock client to arrive.

There are many reasons clients come to a private investigator, and almost none of them are happy ones. Some people have lost something or someone and want it found, some want their suspicions allayed or confirmed, some are seeking redress or protection or succor. In any case, the decision to seek out members of . . . [ Read More Free Samples ]

Reviews
Roberts certainly creates a sense of place. Cleveland rings true-and he's especially skillful in creating real moral and ethical choices for his characters. — The Plain Dealer
Jacovich [is] one of the most fully-realized characters in modern crime fiction . . . Roberts is a confident writer who knows his character well and who has made him complex enough to be interesting. — Mostly Murder
About Les Roberts
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. More About Les Roberts

Contains References to:

Chagrin Falls, Cleveland Fiction, Cleveland Flats, Cleveland Mysteries, Cuyahoga County, Lake County, Little Italy, Mayfield Road, Milan Jacovich, Severance Hall, Strohs, University Circle,

Other books by Les Roberts:
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