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Alo Nudger

This page lists novels and short story collections that feature the St. Louis based private investigator Alo Nudger.

 

Alo Nudger: Novels and short story collections

Buyer Beware

John Lutz

G. P. Putnam's Sons

1976

An Alo Nudger novel.

"Private investigator Alo Nudger didn't have to think twice about accepting the $2,500 fee from Gordon Clark, whose seven-year-old daughter had been "kidnapped" by his ex-wife, Joan. After all, the pay was good, and the job seemed simple enough: bring young Melissa back from Florida to her frantic father. Nudger arrives at his destination to find only an empty house but soon locates Melissa in the safekeeping of a neighbor and reckons his job is done... or is it? For now Joan is missing, and the man she and Melissa had been living with is murdered. Nudger's new proposition from an equally distraught parent—Joan's father—is not so readily appealing as before. Fifty thousand dollars to locate a missing person is a tempting sum, indeed—assuming Alo Nudger can stay alive long enough to enjoy it."
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Night Lines

John Lutz

St Martin's Press

1984

An Alo Nudger novel.

"A murderer is stalking the streets of St Louis, and the only thing linking his victims is a system of special nightlines used by the phone company to test equipment. Lonely people use them to make contact with one another - but these people are dying."
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The Right to Sing the Blues

John Lutz

St Martin's Press

1986

An Alo Nudger novel.

"New Orleans is off Alo Nudger's beaten path; the St. Louis private detective likes the comforts of home. But he also loves jazz and when he's given a round-trip ticket to the Crescent City by legendary clarinetist Fat Jack McGee, who needs to talk to him, Nudger is willing to take a flyer. Fat Jack has a problem, maybe two: a singer named Ineida, whose father is a very important man in New Orleans, and a pianist named Hollister. Hollister plays the blues just fine, but there's something about him that disturbs Fat Jack. In fact, now that Hollister and the girl are an item, Fat Jack's scared. It doesn't take long before Nudger is, too."
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Ride the Lightning

John Lutz

St Martin's Press

1987

An Alo Nudger novel.

"No one thought Curtis Colt had been railroaded for the shooting of a liquor store owner, least of all St. Louis private investigator Alo Nudger. It had been an open-and-shut case of cold blooded murder, and the people of Missouri were just waiting for Colt to be strapped into the electric chair—after all, three eyewitnesses couldn't be wrong. But as time runs out on the convicted killer, Nudger receives a call from Candy Ann Adams, Colt's fiancé, who insists he's innocent, because she knows who really pulled the trigger. Despite his better judgment, Nudger takes the case, finding the trail cold and witnesses colder still. But, just as he prepares to abandon the case and leave Colt to his fate, Nudger comes across new evidence that convinces him that maybe Candy Ann is right, maybe the wrong man has been sentenced to 'ride the lightning'."
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Dancer's Debt

John Lutz

St Martin's Press

1988

An Alo Nudger novel.

"Helen Crane, a beauty 'men build dreams around,' hires private eye Alo Nudger to find out what's troubling her lover Jake Dancer. Middle-aging, old-shoe Nudger tails Dancer and manages to save him from a couple of strong-arm men. Dancer, handsome, feckless, an alcoholic and compulsive gambler is vague about the money he owes, and Nudger learns that Helen, working for an 'escort service,' plans to move 'up' to prostitution to help pay Dancer's debts. Then Dancer vanishes, Nudger's lover Claudia is abducted, and the story ends with the uncovering of a grisly, sadistic snuff-film operation."
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Time Exposure

John Lutz

St Martin's Press

1989

An Alo Nudger novel.

"Timid Nudger, determined to be a mensch, gives new meaning to fighting city hall on an assignment from Adelaide Lacy. Her sister Mary and Mary's boss, Virgil Hiller, are missing from their government posts, along with $500,000 in public funds. According to Adelaide, Mary and Virgil despised each other so much, they would only be found together outside the office if they were dead. Which is how Nudger believes he and Adelaide could wind up, as he picks up slim clues and dodges the armed stalker hired to mark the case closed."
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Diamond Eyes

John Lutz

St. Martin's Press

1990

An Alo Nudger novel.

"PI Alo Nudger, at the St Louis airport to pick up a pal, offers his business card to a distraught woman just before an incoming plane blows apart. The next morning she arrives at his office with a wild story about a bomb in an attache case and a fortune in stolen diamonds, and Nudger gets involved because he needs the fee to fend off his greedy, vindictive ex-wife and her sleazy lawyer. Then his new client is tortured and murdered, and when the hard-nosed killers threaten Nudger’s lover and let Nudger know that they are watching his every move, Nudger’s friend and former partner, police detective Jack Hammersmith, offers information and protection."
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Thicker Than Blood

John Lutz

St. Martin's Press

1993

An Alo Nudger novel.

"When shy, country girl-woman Norva Beane hires Nudger to investigate a possible securities fraud, he thinks it will be a routine case. He doesn't realize it will involve a wandering daughter, drug dealers, a dangerous, tattooed muscle-man, a dysfunctional family, and a poignant past that refuses to release its grip on anyone involved. Nudger, his lady love Claudia Bettencourt, and his friends Lieutenant Jack Hammersmith and Danny Evers are all touched by a tragedy that continues to unfold in surprising directions no matter how hard Nudger tries to stop it. The suspense becomes riveting as trouble builds and answers lead to more questions and more danger."
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Death by Jury

John Lutz

St. Martin's Press

1995

An Alo Nudger novel.

"Private Investigator Alo Nudger is hired by an attorney to learn about the client he is defending on a murder charge. The defendant's wife has disappeared and the police believe that her wealthy husband killed her. But despite his guilt, the husband seems strangely unconcerned. The defendant's sister knows something and so does the sensuous next-door neighbor. What Nudger learns pulls him deep into a tangle of deception, sex and dark family secrets."
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Oops!

John Lutz

St Martin's Press

1998

An Alo Nudger novel.

"Alo Nudger is coerced by a very young, fearless, feckless pixie of a colleague named Lacy Tumulty to take over a case that she's too busy to handle. It's an easy assignment, but Nudger's agreement to help with the case is a reluctant one. Lacy, charming as she is, has a way of being followed by trouble. The client is a man who wants to prove his daughter was murdered. The police won't do it, so he has hired Lacy, who enlists Nudger. The daughter, alone in her locked house, tripped on the stairs, fell, fractured her skull, and died. Seems to Nudger it's almost robbery to take the man's money. But all is not what it seems."
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The Nudger Dilemmas: A Short Story Collection

John Lutz

Five Star

2001

Alo Nudger short stories.

"Nudger, whose ever-present antacids protect a stomach that turns at the mere hint of danger, somehow manages to do his job without resorting to fists or handguns. The well-turned phrase is his most lethal weapon, whether he's seeking justice for an executed man proved innocent after the fact or coming to the aid of his friend Danny, proprietor of Danny's Donuts, who believes that his fellow shipmates from Vietnam are being killed one by one."
The stories are:
  • Ride The Lightning
  • What You Don't Know Can Hurt You
  • Only One Way To Land
  • Time Exposure
  • Typographical Error
  • Where Is Harry Beal?
  • Flotsam And Jetsam
  • Thunder Of Guilt
  • Right To Sing The Blues
  • Before You Leap
  • Litigants
  • Man In The Morgue
  • Romantics
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Last updated July 2018