A botched coke bust forces Wager to go undercover for the first time in years For six months, the Denver narcotics team and the DEA have built a case against a cocaine-dealing heavy named Farnsworth. When Detective Reitman makes the final buy, he runs a field test to make sure the package of powder he's just purchased is really cocaine. The test is positive, and the bust goes down. Afterwards, the DEA's lab says that Reitman was wrong-he'd just bought...

A tip about a murdered mob boss forces Gabe Wager to reopen a cold case A year ago, Marco Scorvelli was murdered while picking up his morning paper. A sawed-off shotgun put a hole in his stomach, and streaked the inside of his sports coat with the mob boss's innards. As Scorvelli crawled towards his front door, the killer left the shotgun angled neatly on the sidewalk. No prints were recovered, and no headway was ever made on the case.   Now a reliable...

When a stripper is murdered, Gabe Wager turns the red-light district inside out More than any other establishment on Denver's red-light strip, the Cinnamon Club has taken advantage of the new law allowing all-nude dancing. What was once confined to back rooms now takes center stage, and the activities in the club's private section grow ever more depraved. Annette Sheldon is the Cinnamon Club's rising star until her body is found dumped in an alley,...

Wager hunts for the killer of a black councilman, as the city threatens to riot Gabe's girlfriend Jo is drowning. She stares up at him, eyes wide with terror, as he fights to grab her hand. In a moment, the frothing river swallows her up, and Jo is gone.   Nine months have passed since Jo's death, and Detective Wager cannot get the image out of his mind. Rather than fight the urge to blame himself, he embraces the guilt, punishing himself for it...

When gang warfare claims his cousin, Detective Wager seeks justice There was a time in Denver when a child's murder was a tragedy, but now that gangs have taken hold of the city, teenage deaths are sickeningly routine. As far as homicide detective Gabriel Wager can tell, the latest victim, a thirteen-year-old boy, was a good kid, with no affiliation to any local gang. But in gangland, even innocents have a way of becoming targets.   As he investigates...