Boldt/Matthews
6 primary works
Book 4
Book 5
A wave of babynappings has terrified parents from San Diego to Portland. And when the Pied Piper - named for the penny flute he leaves in the cribs of his victims - claims his first Seattle infant, the investigation draws in homicide detective Lou Boldt. Assigned temporarily to Intelligence so he can spend more time with his kids while his wife is hospitalized for chemotherapy, Boldt's role is to keep the FBI out of the Seattle Police Department's way. But FBI special agent Gary Flemming is a tough adversary - so tough it almost seems as if he's intentionally sabotaging the SPD's investigation. Then the Pied Piper snatches Boldt's own daughter, promising that unless Boldt throws both the Feds and the SPD off his trail he'll never see his child again. Caught between his professional obligations and his fear for Sarah's life, Boldt launches his own private manhunt.
Lou, with the help of John La Moia, his replacement in homicide, and police psychologist Daphne Matthews, his closest friend in the department, form a sub rosa task force under the noses of the Feds and the SPD, and soon discover how the Piper has managed to stay a step ahead of the police, elude capture, and find his small victims. The chase moves from Seattle to Portland to New Orleans, culminating in a thrilling denouement in the daffodil fields of Washington's Skagit Valley.
Lou, with the help of John La Moia, his replacement in homicide, and police psychologist Daphne Matthews, his closest friend in the department, form a sub rosa task force under the noses of the Feds and the SPD, and soon discover how the Piper has managed to stay a step ahead of the police, elude capture, and find his small victims. The chase moves from Seattle to Portland to New Orleans, culminating in a thrilling denouement in the daffodil fields of Washington's Skagit Valley.
Book 6
Boldt plays jazz piano one night a week in a local bar, and despite his concern for his hands, he takes every opportunity he can to get away from his desk and into the streets. But money pressures, caused by his wife's recent illness, also make him think about the possibility of a better-paying job in the private sector. Meanwhile, some extremely ruthless people are murdering illegal Chinese immigrant women and leaving their bodies buried in newly dug graves. An ambitious local TV journalist named Stevie McNeal and the young Chinese woman she thinks of as her 'Little Sister' risk their lives to investigate the killings, while Boldt and his team round up a most unusual array of suspects. This combination of hard-edged realism and softer sentiment has become Pearson's trademark, and once again it works smoothly.
Book 7
The Seattle police force are on strike. Detective Lou Boldt is committed to remaining on the job come what may, but when the city is hit by a string of robberies and the brutal near-murder of a female cop, the mounting pressures start to threaten his marriage and mental state of health.
Book 8
Seattle Police forensic psychologist Daphne Matthews, who volunteers as a teenage runaway counselor, is haunted by the loss of a suicide, a 'jumper', of a year earlier. When a woman's body is found beneath the Aurora Bridge, Matthews is one of the first at the scene and begins a puzzling investigation that is entangled with her own past, that of the victim, and even of Seattle itself. Mary-Ann's boyfriend has a record of physical abuse, and an attitude that Matthews finds difficult to crack. When the victim's grieving brother surfaces, throwing blame onto the boyfriend and craving revenge, Matthews gains an unstable ally she does not want. Then the stalking begins: the eerie phone calls, the noises outside the house, the shadows that move in the night. Someone has their eye on Matthews - but to stop her, kill her, or to help her solve the crime? While her colleagues, police lieutenant Lou Boldt and sergeant John LaMoia, pursue a hotel room peeper in hopes of solving a series of disappearances, the police and Matthews herself are led into the 'Underground' - a perfectly preserved city-under-a-city, beneath present-day Seattle.
Matthews engages in a mental game of cat-and-mouse, never knowing whom she can trust. Caught up in something that could kill her if she can't solve the homicide, criss-crossing Seattle, diving below the streets to ancient tunnels, running for her life, Matthews must unlock the psychological secrets behind Mary-Ann's death, before she herself is buried alongside her. Matthews' very survival will depend on her skills at the art of deception.
Matthews engages in a mental game of cat-and-mouse, never knowing whom she can trust. Caught up in something that could kill her if she can't solve the homicide, criss-crossing Seattle, diving below the streets to ancient tunnels, running for her life, Matthews must unlock the psychological secrets behind Mary-Ann's death, before she herself is buried alongside her. Matthews' very survival will depend on her skills at the art of deception.
Book 9
Years ago, Lou Boldt's wife Liz had an affair with David Hayes, a young computer specialist at the bank where she is an executive. When Liz ended the relationship after reconciling with Lou, Hayes took part in a daring embezzlement scheme. Now, years later, Hayes is trying to retrieve the money he hid for the Russian mob, and contacts Liz to try and gain access to the bank's mainframe. Liz is torn between wanting to protect the bank and needing to protect her children, who are being threatened. Boldt, ripped apart by the discovery of his wife's possible blackmail, must skate a delicate line between determined detective and jealous husband, if he is to find the money while exposing and stopping Hayes. Intensely involving, and revealing new aspects of Boldt's emotional makeup never before seen, THE BODY OF DAVID HAYES is Ridley's most gripping and engaging thriller yet.