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This page lists novels by Stephen Greenleaf.

Cover images are, when possible, of the first US edition and a recent paperback or digital edition.

Grave Error

Stephen Greenleaf

1979

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"When corporations misbehave, Roland Nelson brings them to heel. The most powerful consumer advocate in the country, he’s ruthless in exposing cover-ups, especially when the safety of the American people is at stake. But the white knight of the American consumer has secrets of his own, and someone is making him pay. Nelson is being blackmailed, and unless his tormenter is stopped, the final payoff will be murder. Desperate for help, Nelson’s wife approaches no-nonsense San Francisco private investigator John Marshall Tanner, who takes time out of his busy schedule of skiptracing and divorce work to look into the businessman’s secrets. At first, the job seems routine, but when a brother PI is killed on the job, Tanner realizes there are dark forces swirling around the case."

Death Bed

Stephen Greenleaf

1980

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"Maximilian Kottle spent all his life fearing death. When he eventually developed cancer, he thought the disease might prove a disappointment. He was wrong. Dying is far worse than he had imagined. With less than a month to live, the wealthiest man in San Francisco calls on private detective John Marshall Tanner to fulfill his final wish: He wants to see his son. Thirty-year-old Karl has been missing since he disappeared a decade ago, lost in the fog of sixties radicalism, leaving his plutocrat father in the dust. As the elder Kottle’s time runs out, he hopes the past can be forgotten, but as Tanner soon learns, the wounds of the sixties haven’t fully healed, and finding Karl Kottle will be an explosive feat."

State’s Evidence

Stephen Greenleaf

1982

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"El Gordo is a quiet little city just outside of San Francisco, with a charming town square, a few local businesses, and the most corrupt police force in the state of California. John Marshall Tanner has worked a case here before, and it nearly ended with him taking a beating. When the private detective returns to El Gordo, it will be his life on the line. A new district attorney is fighting to clean up this rotten burg, and he wants Tanner’s help. One of the richest men in town killed a nobody in a hit-and-run, and the culprit is doing everything he can to buy his way out of trouble. In the old days, that would have been simple. But with the DA backing him up, Tanner will scrub El Gordo clean - no matter how much blood stains its filthy streets."

Fatal Obsession

Stephen Greenleaf

1983

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"It’s been thirty years since John Marshall Tanner, private eye, returned to Chaldea, and he hasn’t missed the farm—three hundred acres of thin topsoil and ratty growth—any more than he’s missed his family. There’s his sister, Gail, worn down by decades of trying to do the right thing; his brother Curt, wallowing in depression ever since his son, Billy, came back broken from Vietnam; and his other brother, Matt, in debt up to his eyeballs and trying desperately to hang on to his new wife. As the family convenes to discuss selling the farm, tensions run high—and tragedy looms on the horizon. When Billy is found hanging in a public park, the family dismisses it as suicide. But our protagonist knows murder when he sees it, and he is determined to learn what happened to the dead boy, no matter the cost to his family."

Beyond Blame

Stephen Greenleaf

1985

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"Dianne Renzel’s parents, a kind old Swedish couple, have just sold their business and are planning to use some of the money to purchase a car for their only child. But when their daughter is found murdered in her home, her flesh cut to ribbons by a madman’s blade, they’ll need to buy her justice instead. The police investigation quickly stalls, and the Renzels reach out to the only private investigator in San Francisco sensitive enough to handle this gruesome crime: John Marshall Tanner. Dianne was married to Lawrence Usser, a constitutional law professor known for helping killers evade punishment by pleading temporary insanity. When Usser is accused of murdering Dianne, his natural recourse is his most practiced defense. It falls to Tanner to prove that Usser knew what he was doing when he butchered his innocent young wife—and the case will take the detective far past the brink of madness."

The Ditto List

Stephen Greenleaf

1985

"Mareth Stone's comfortable life comes under threat when her wealthy husband unexpectedly files for divorce and full custody of their children. Disabled and poverty-stricken, Esther Preston finds her life in danger when she decides to sue her ex-husband for help with her medical bills. Young, pretty and badly battered, Lucinda Finders must leave the man she loves to save the life of her child. Into the lives of these three women comes D.T. Jones, an L.A. lawyer who actually cares about his clients. Making a living in the divorce courts from the weekly 'ditto list', D.T. must fight to survive when these three cases plunge him into the dangerous world of violence, malpractice and blackmail."

Toll Call

Stephen Greenleaf

1987

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"John Marshall Tanner finds his secretary slumped over on the sofa, her arm draped across her face. This private eye has seen enough death that, for a moment, he thinks Peggy Nettleton has been murdered. Fortunately, after a moment’s panic, he realizes she has simply dozed off. Tanner has worked alongside Peggy for eight years, and if something happened to her, it would shatter him. Unfortunately, that grim nightmare is about to come true. For weeks now, Peggy has been getting obscene phone calls from one of the most deranged minds in San Francisco. To set her mind at rest, Tanner goes looking for the caller - a decision that sends him down a path of madness and murder that could either push him into Peggy’s arms or separate them forever."

Impact

Stephen Greenleaf

1989

"When SurfAir 617 crashes on its way from Los Angeles to San Francisco, the disaster touches many lives. For Alec Hawthorne, an internationally famous aviation lawyer, it means money - and the chance to fight once again for safety in the skies. For Keith Tollison, a small-time lawyer, the crash has a more personal implication; Jack Donahue, the husband of the woman Keith loves, was on board the plane. On Laura Donahue's behalf, the former friends reunite to take on the airline. But as the trial progresses Alec, Keith and Laura find themselves caught in a complex web of intrigue and deceit, and the secrets revealed threaten to destroy them all."

Book Case

Stephen Greenleaf

1991

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"John Marshall Tanner has spent most of his life avoiding parties—an easy feat for San Francisco’s most introspective private detective. Nevertheless, when one of his closest friends, publisher Bryce Chatterton, finds himself in desperate need of a private eye, Tanner joins him at the party thrown to announce Periwinkle Press’s latest publication—but there’s little reason to celebrate. The publisher’s financial backer has decided to pull the plug on Periwinkle unless Chatterton can come up with a bestseller fast. Chatterton thinks he has his hands on a surefire hit—but he’s not sure if he can print it. The book is an anonymous tell-all, implicating some of the city’s most powerful in a chilling miscarriage of justice, and Chatterton needs the author to corroborate the story. Only Tanner can track down the mysterious writer, but are the secrets between the pages of this manuscript worth dying for?"

Blood Type

Stephen Greenleaf

1992

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"John Marshall Tanner, PI, is a drinking man, and he prefers to imbibe in the comfort of a nameless San Francisco bar. Tanner has just one friend there, a social crusader named Tom Crandall who has just discovered that his wife, a celebrated chanteuse, is having an affair with one of the city’s most powerful men: Richard Sands. Sands is a ruthless corporate tycoon, and if he wants to steal Crandall’s wife, there’s nothing either Crandall or the private detective can do about it. But soon after Crandall confides in Tanner, the jilted husband is found dead. Although the police write Crandall’s death off as just another overdose, Tanner knows his friend never touched drugs. Convinced the murder was connected to Sands, he begins a journey that will take him into the depths of San Francisco’s seediest district—the Tenderloin—where only the streetwise survive."

Southern Cross

Stephen Greenleaf

1993

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"In his long career as a private eye, John Marshall Tanner has stared down a great many evils, but even he cringes at the thought of turning fifty. So when the invitation arrives for his twenty-five-year college reunion, Tanner bites at the chance to feel young again. He expects a weekend of nostalgia, but he will be lucky to get out alive. At the reunion, Tanner reconnects with an old college buddy, Seth Hartman, now a civil rights lawyer in Charleston, a city more divided by racial intolerance than any in the country. After two decades protecting the rights of the black citizens of South Carolina, Hartman has made his share of enemies, and now they want him dead. To assuage his own guilt over sitting out the fight for civil rights, Tanner journeys to Charleston to do battle with men for whom fear is a weapon and hate is a way of life."

False Conception

Stephen Greenleaf

1994

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"When San Francisco detective John Marshall Tanner is hired to do a background check on a prospective surrogate mother, the job seems simple enough. There are only two stipulations - the surrogate must not know the identity of the contracting parents, and the investigation must be completed in three days. With some misgivings, Tanner checks out Greta Hammond and gives her the all clear. Two days later, the embryo of Millicent and Stuart Colbert is implanted in her womb. Two months later Greta Hammond disappears. The Colberts think she has taken the fetus to barter in an extortion attempt. But days pass and no ransom request is made, no barter suggested. It soon seems clear that Greta learned the identity of the child's parents and immediately fled. But why? The answer takes Tanner deep into the secrets of the Colbert family, whose history includes both murder and incest and a bitter struggle for control of an immense fashion empire."

Flesh Wounds

Stephen Greenleaf

1996

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"As far as John Marshall Tanner can tell, everyone in San Francisco is lonely, and few are lonelier than him. He’s lost too many friends, either to death or distance, and there’s no one he misses more than Peggy Nettleton, his beloved former secretary, who left his detective agency six years ago, and broke his heart on her way out the door. When she calls out of the blue, Tanner can tell she’s in trouble—and that means he’s in trouble too. Peggy is due to get married in three weeks, and her soon-to-be stepdaughter, Nina Evans, has disappeared. Nina worked as a model, and it doesn’t take long for Tanner to discover that she was in over her head. As he combs the unfamiliar city in search of the vanished girl, he finds that his old feelings for Peggy are stronger than ever—strong enough to get him killed."

Past Tense

Stephen Greenleaf

1997

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"Tanner's relationship with Charley Sleet of the San Francisco Police Department has both personal and professional dimensions and has long been of vital importance to both men. Nothing could be more out of character than for Sleet to stand up in a civil courtroom and gun down a total stranger. Tanner's search for answers takes him deep into the heated controversy over claims of recovered memories of sexual abuse, into the darkly violent corridors of police corruption, and, most painfully of all, into the fearsome new contours of his best friend's mind."

Strawberry Sunday

Stephen Greenleaf

1999

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"John Marshall Tanner left most of his blood in a vacant lot on Twentieth Street, along with the body of his closest friend. Tanner and Charley Sleet shot each other at the same time—a tragic finale to a long friendship that left Sleet dead and Tanner bleeding out on the sidewalk. The EMTs saved Tanner, but he isn’t sure he wants to be alive. The uncertainty doesn’t last long though, and soon he will find a reason to live—and to die. While he recuperates in the hospital, Tanner befriends Rita Lombardi, a strawberry picker from Haciendas who is recovering from corrective surgery on her clubfeet. Rita leaves the hospital walking tall, but soon after, she’s murdered in her hometown, unforgivably guilty of promoting unionization. To avenge her, Tanner will hunt for the killer as long as the blood keeps pumping in his veins."

Ellipsis

Stephen Greenleaf

2000

A John Marshall Tanner novel.

"Somebody wants Chandelier Wells dead. After years churning out bestselling bodice-rippers, she’s the best-known author in San Francisco, and she’s no stranger to receiving threatening letters. But the most recent ones seem different. They feel real. Ms. Wells knows her life is in danger, and the only man capable of protecting her is John Marshall Tanner. Tanner is a private detective, not a bodyguard, but at Ms. Wells’s rates, he’ll be anything she likes. He soon finds that her life is a chaotic one though. Between crazed fans, a jealous ex, and a scheming agent, Chandelier Wells has no one she can trust. When her chauffer is killed by a car bomb intended to erase her from the bestseller lists, Tanner knows that the life of this Chandelier is hanging precariously in the balance."