Lyle Dahms Mystery

Hired by a mob-controlled pornographer to investigate a grisly murder, Minneapolis PI Lyle Dahms faces murderous gunmen, merciless gang members, and a massive ex-professional wrestler who, besotted with the dead man's wife, insists on tagging along. The real mystery involves the pornographer's mistress, a dark and vulnerable beauty who steals Lyle's heart-and who may not be everything she seems. As the lies continue to mount and loyalties change like the Midwest weather, Dahms risks his life to seek justice and protect the woman he loves.

When Minneapolis private investigator Lyle Dahms visits a friend who makes armor at a rural Renaissance festival instead of a day of medieval merrymaking he witnesses a grisly murder, watching helplessly as one of the friend's colleagues is pinned to a wall by an arrow shot by an unseen assailant. Although warned to stay out of the case by the local constabulary, Dahms gets drawn in further and further as he uncovers drug dealing, crooked cops, infidelity, more deaths, and even stumbles into an unlikely chance at love with a comely and independent-minded barmaid. As lies and hidden agendas reveal themselves, Dahms must keep his wits about him as he navigates an unfamiliar bygone land of knights in armor, wandering jugglers, lusty wenches, strolling minstrels, and both gun-toting and broadsword-wielding adversaries. All that and, of course, something with which Dahms is all too familiar-murder.

Minneapolis P.I. Lyle Dahms investigates the murder of an old high school buddy. The dead man, now a highly successful software developer, is found repeatedly stabbed with swastikas carved into his corpse. Suspicion promptly falls on the dead man's son, a high school student who had gone virtually overnight from star athlete and scholar to rebellious skinhead whose hate-filled diatribes spare no one, least of all his privileged, liberal father. Dahms soon discovers others with motives to kill his old friend, chief among them a white supremacist leader and publicity-hungry "minister" who frames his racist views as divine law. But before Dahms can close in on the truth, his investigation is hampered by the arrival of the dead man's former girlfriend, now an embittered hooker. Claiming to know who killed his friend, she refuses to tell Dahms for fear that she will be the next victim. She does, however, leave him something. When she bolts, she abandons her three-year-old daughter to his care, leaving Dahms charged with keeping the little girl safe, finding her mother, and solving the murder before the killer can strike again.

On his death bed, Minneapolis private investigator Lyle Dahms's father-a retired suburban police patrolman-asks his son to reach out to a dark figure from their shared past. Despite his reservations, Dahms feels he cannot refuse. But the visit sets off a chain reaction that will expose long-buried family secrets and provoke dangerous enemies. As threats mount, Dahms must protect not only his family, but that of his dad's former partner-a man he is not sure he can trust.

When his best friend's sister vanishes with a man known for his drug habit, Minneapolis private investigator Lyle Dahms heads to Seattle to bring her home. But the city he finds is nothing like the postcards-its rain-soaked streets hide a growing homelessness crisis, predatory dealers, and police who don't want an outsider stirring up trouble. Searching for the missing woman, Dahms leans on unlikely allies: an elderly Filipino food bank volunteer with sharp instincts and a handful of strangers whose loyalties shift like the weather. Each lead pulls him deeper into a world ruled by desperation, where trust is scarce, and danger waits around every corner. Far from home and increasingly out of his depth, Dahms must decide how much he's willing to risk to keep a promise. Because the truth behind the young woman's disappearance is darker than he imagined-and finding her may cost him far more than he came to give.