Kovac & Liska

6 total works

Dust to Dust

by Tami Hoag

Published 1 August 2000

The death of internal affairs investigator Andy Fallon is a potential political bomb for the Minneapolis Police Department. Andy Fallon was gay, and he was investigating a possible cop connection in the brutal murder of another gay officer. But Andy's death looks like suicide - or an unfortunate and embarrassing accident: death by auto erotic misadventure - and the pressure is on from the top brass to close the case as soon as possible. But Andy Fallon's ex lover doesn't believe Andy died by his own hand - accidentally or otherwise. He believes Andy's death is tied to his work, and he presses lead detective Sam Kovac to find another answer - one that won't be popular with anyone. With the help of Amanda Savard, Fallon's supervisor, Kovac begins to investigate the cases that Andy was working on and the deeper he digs, the more suspicious he becomes. It begins to look as if Andy Fallon might have hit on something that got him killed. And Andy might not be the final victim ...As Kovac and his partner, Tinks Liska, peel back the layers of this complex case, they will find their careers and their lives on the line, because someone wants the truth left dead and buried.
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.

Ashes to Ashes

by Tami Hoag

Published 31 December 1998

Kate Conlan, an ex-FBI agent turned advocate, finds herself protecting a teenage runaway who has witnessed the latest murder by the "Cremator" - a serial killer who burns women alive.

Dead Sky

by Tami Hoag

Published 22 March 2006

It was a crime so brutal it changed the lives of even the most hardened homicide cops. The Haas family murders left a scar on the community nothing can erase, but convicting the alleged killer - Karl Dahl - would be a start. Only Judge Carey Moore seems to be standing in the way. Her ruling that Dahl's prior criminal record is inadmissible as evidence against him raises a public outcry - and puts the judge in grave danger. When an unknown assailant attacks Carey in a parking garage, two of the city's top cops are called in to investigate and keep the judge from further harm. Detective Sam Kovac is as hard-boiled as they come, and his wisecracking partner, Nikki Liska, isn't far behind. Neither detective wants to be on this case, but when Karl Dahl escapes custody, everything changes, and a seemingly straightforward case cartwheels out of control. The stakes are raised when the judge is kidnapped from her home even as the police sit outside watching her house. Now Kovac and Liska must navigate through a maze of suspects that include the step-son of a murder victim, a husband with a secret life, and a rogue cop looking for revenge where the justice system failed.
With no time to spare, the detectives are pulled down a strange dark trail of smoke and mirrors, where no one is whom they seem, and everyone is guilty of something.

The Bitter Season

by Tami Hoag

Published 6 January 2016

"As the dreary, bitter weather of late fall descends on Minneapolis, Detective Nikki Liska is restless, already bored with her new assignment to the cold case squad. She misses the rush of pulling an all-nighter and the sense of urgency of hunting a desperate killer on the loose. Most of all she misses her old partner, Sam Kovac. Kovac is having an even harder time adjusting to Liska's absence, saddled with a green new partner younger than most of Sam's wardrobe. But Kovac is distracted from his troubles by an especially brutal double homicide: a prominent university professor and his wife, bludgeoned and hacked to death in their home with a ceremonial Japanese samurai sword. Liska's case--the unsolved murder of a decorated sex crimes detective--is less of a distraction: Twenty five years later, there is little hope for finding the killer who got away. Meanwhile, Minneapolis resident Evi Burke has a life she only dreamed of as a kid in and out of foster homes: a beautiful home, a family, people who love her, a fulfilling job. But a danger from her past is stalking her idyllic present. A danger bent on destroying the perfect life she was never meant to have. As the trails of two crimes a quarter of century apart twist and cross, Kovac and Liska race to find answers before a killer strikes again."--

Cold Cold Heart

by Tami Hoag

Published 1 December 2014

"#1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag delivers a shocking new thriller ... Dana Nolan was a promising young TV reporter until a notorious serial killer tried to add her to his list of victims. Nearly a year has passed since surviving her ordeal, but the physical, emotional, and psychological scars run deep. Struggling with the torment of post-traumatic stress syndrome, plagued by flashbacks and nightmares as dark as the heart of a killer, Dana returns to her hometown in an attempt to begin to put her life back together. But home doesn't provide the comfort she expects. Dana's harrowing story and her return to small town life have rekindled police and media interest in the unsolved case of her childhood best friend, Casey Grant, who disappeared without a trace the summer after their graduation from high school. Terrified of truths long-buried, Dana reluctantly begins to look back at her past. Viewed through the dark filter of PTSD, old friends and loved ones become suspects and enemies. Questioning everything she knows, refusing to be defined by the traumas of her past and struggling against excruciating odds, Dana seeks out a truth that may prove too terrible to be believed ... --

The 9th Girl

by Tami Hoag

Published 18 June 2013

In THE 9th GIRL, Tami Hoag - the Sunday Times bestselling author of A THIN DARK LINE - returns with book four in the gripping Kovac & Liska detective series. A serial killer is kidnapping young women. Have they saved his 9th victim from danger?

As Detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska stand over the brutally disfigured remains of an adolescent girl in the early hours of New Year's Day, they suspect they've stumbled across the ninth victim of the notorious Doc Holiday. A horribly sadistic killer who kidnaps women during the holidays.

But with the girl's identity obscured by her injuries, they have little to go on. Until Liska discovers that one of her son's friends - Gray - is missing...

And it seems that everyone who knew Gray is telling lies. Liska and Kovac are in a race against time to discover whether this is indeed the ninth girl, or an entirely different nightmare altogether...

New York Times bestseller Tami Hoag takes the reader behind the picket fences of small-town America, she finds the most gruesome killers and twisted predators.

Watch out for the next book in the Kovac and Liska crime thriller series THE BITTER SEASON
A middle-aged couple - hacked to death in their own home - with a samurai sword. Normal people. Who were they? And why were they targeted? Twenty years ago a policeman was murdered in his own back garden and the killer was never caught. One woman might link these mysteries. But she is being watched. Can Detectives Nikki Liska and Sam Kovac find her before it is too late? THE BITTER SEASON is the next gripping thriller in the series.