On this page

This page lists novels that feature the Seattle based private investigator Thomas Black.

The Rainy City

Earl Emerson

1985

A Thomas Black novel.

"Something made Melissa Nadisky flee her husband and their daughter. The note she left behind paints a picture of a woman haunted by a private hell. Now Thomas Black's friend, Kathy Birchfield, wants him to find Melissa--before she's consumed by her secret, terrifying demons. Yet the straightforward missing persons case turns deadly when a killer starts silencing key witnesses in Black's investigation. But there's no turning back - especially after the sometimes-psychic Kathy tells him about her terrifying vision: a weeping little girl and a pit full of human bones."

Poverty Bay

Earl Emerson

1985

A Thomas Black novel.

"As sole heir to his beloved granddaddy's fortune, noble and naive Lance Tyner wants to use the money for the good of mankind. But some not-so-good specimens of the species - including Lance's conniving father, sleazy brother, and spoiled sister - have much more selfish plans in mind. Now Lance has vanished. And P.I. Thomas Black must follow his trail into the sad and scary places where the dregs of humanity struggle to stay alive--and where men like Lance and Black too often end up dead."

Nervous Laughter

Earl Emerson

1985

A Thomas Black novel.

"Thomas Black hits P.I. pay dirt when he shadows a alleged philanderer to a tryst. But instead of two illicit lovers, he finds two bodies, an apparent murder-suicide. The dead man's grieving widow doesn't believe her late husband pulled the trigger - on his lover or himself. Everyone - including Black's own sexy client - seems to be hiding something. Maybe the name of the murdered man's equally dead girlfriend, Bea Hindenburg, should have warned Black that this case was destined to crash and burn."

Fat Tuesday

Earl Emerson

1987

A Thomas Black novel.

"When Fred Pugsley receives a dead rattlesnake in the mail, ex-Seattle cop Thomas Black and his friend, lawyer Kathy Birchfield, are called in to investigate. But when they get there, Fred is dead, and his stunned wife sits huddled in the kitchen, clutching a tool used on racing bicycles -- the murder weapon. But the wife says she's innocent, and suddenly there are plenty of other suspects. Just as Seattle stages its own Mardi Gras, Black is getting ready for a wild blow-out of his own."

Deviant Behavior

Earl Emerson

1988

A Thomas Black novel.

"When seventeen-year-old Todd Steeb has been missing for eight days, his wealthy parents hire Thomas Black to investigate. Faith Steeb is worried by her son's obsession with suicide, though her husband dismisses it as youthful 'deviance.' Aided by his lawyer friend Kathy Birchfield, Black finds forgotten crime, buried treasure, possible murder, and enough 'deviant' behavior to blow Seattle off the map."

Yellow Dog Party

Earl Emerson

1991

A Thomas Black novel.

"Four successful businessmen want Thomas Black to track down the four women they've had secret crushes on for years and set up "dream dates" with them. But Black, on the trail of the first dream girl, finds a woman battered into a coma instead. And then a double murder and the disappearance of another dream girl make Black realize how quickly dreams can turn into deadly nightmares."

The Portland Laugher

Earl Emerson

1994

A Thomas Black novel.

"The menacing phone calls from a maniacally laughing stranger haunt Seattle private eye Thomas Black as he lies partially paralyzed in the hospital - plagued with memory loss and a monstrous sense of doom. Black must piece together the shards of an investigation that nearly killed him. And through the haze of nightmarish recollection, he starts to remember.... A curious couple offers Black a strange proposal: play guardian angel to an unlikely stalking victim - Billy Battle, a brooding ex-con with a psychotic history of unproven murder and mayhem. Hot on Billy's crooked trail is the straight-arrow ex-neighbor who helped send him up the river, and who just may want Billy dead for his own peace of mind. Then the mysterious, diabolical laugher on the phone extends his campaign of terror to Thomas Black, convincing the wily P.I. that he's getting close to something. But exactly what, he doesn't know. As Black wades deeper into a secret world of sadistic murder and pure evil, he finds himself up against an adversary far deadlier than he had ever imagined."

The Vanishing Smile

Earl Emerson

1995

A Thomas Black novel.

"Seattle PI Thomas Black accompanies lawyer Kathy Birchfield to a mysterious meeting with a client in the mountains on a rainy night. Birchfield's car strikes a pedestrian who seems to materialize out of nowhere. The victim is identified as Birchfield's client, a 71-year-old amateur gumshoe named Marian Wright. Too much about the 'accident' looks suspicious to Black, especially when he learns that Wright was hounding several locals with allegations about their sexual histories. The case leads to a web of past lovers who may or may not be linked to a young woman dying of AIDS. Black's investigation is complicated by his love for Kathy, whose fiance he accidentally shot to death several months earlier, and by the return to town of his own wayward father."

The Million-Dollar Tattoo

Earl Emerson

1996

A Thomas Black novel.

"Seattle P.I. Thomas Black is sound asleep when he gets a panicked call from Snake, a fellow gumshoe, with a case that's one for The X-Files. There's an exotic-looking woman dead in Snake's bed. He's not sure how she died, but he's certain about where she came from--outer space. Even a murder rap and the specter of prison can't make Snake change his story. Thomas Black's job? To rescue the increasingly paranoid Snake and discover if indeed 'the truth is out there.' But what Black finds will prove to be more 'out there' than he could ever imagine."

Deception Pass

Earl Emerson

1997

A Thomas Black novel.

"As a rebellious teen, Lainie Smith hooked up with a drifter named Charlie - and she may have been an eyewitness to murder in the shadow of cliff-walled Deception Pass, where the water runs river-swift and turbulent. When justice - and the executioner - finally caught up with Charlie, Lainie was long gone. But somebody who knows the truth - the whole truth - about Lainie's dark history is blackmailing her. Lainie won't tell P. I. Thomas Black why she's being blackmailed, only that her tormentor "knows things he cannot possibly know." Just how far will Black's saintlike client go to bury her past forever?"

Catfish Cafe

Earl Emerson

1999

A Thomas Black novel.

"Everyone who knew Balinda could have told Seattle private eye Thomas Black that the ex-choir girl thumbed a ride with the devil a long time ago. Still, no one expected the pretty young woman to vanish off the face of the earth--leaving in her wake an empty purse, a wrecked car, and a dead Eagle Scout in the backseat. What's more, Balinda never even gave notice at her last job - at a backwater diner where a freezer might keep more than crawdads on ice. When Balinda's dead passenger is identified, Thomas Black suspects big trouble. For it turns out that the victim was a fifth-grade Tacoma schoolteacher with an impeccable reputation. But tracking the past of that white-bread teacher is increasingly hazardous. Especially when it leads Thomas back to that modest little eat-in/take-out . . . called Catfish Café."

Cape Disappointment

Earl Emerson

2009

A Thomas Black novel.

"The bomb that nearly killed Thomas Black went off in a school gymnasium after a Senate candidate had spoken. Amid the carnage, Black enters a tunnel of dreams and hallucinations, oblivion and unconnected memories. People come and go in his hospital room. A woman kisses him. A madman's rant echoes in his mind. When Black is released from the hospital, he faces the twin tragedies that have devastated his life, and the fact that his lovely wife, Kathy, is really gone for good. Or is she? Thomas believes he sees Kathy - as a passenger in a passing truck. Her cell phone, which should be on the bottom of the sea, calls his in the middle of the night. And the explanations investigators give for the plane crash just don't make sense. Now, step by step, Black is beginning to understand what a paranoid, alcoholic former CIA hit man has been trying to tell him about the plane crash, about the death of a reporter's husband, about suspicious things nobody ever gets around to questioning. Suddenly Black is caught up in a web of personal and political lies and something even worse: a plot that is killing everyone it touches."

Monica's Sister

Earl Emerson

2013

A Thomas Black novel.

"Black agrees to do a favor for a longtime friend of Kathy’s, Angela Bassman, who quickly gets him tangled in a messy relationship between philandering billionaire, Clark Lloyd Self and his famous ex-model wife, Monica Pennington. Bassman wants Black to help her disrupt the already shaky marriage, while Black wants nothing to do with it. Complications ensue when Self’s gargantuan Rhodes-scholar bodyguard and his sniggering buddy begin harassing Black and Bassman. When Bassman ends up dead, her sister hires Black to delve into her last weeks, sending Black on a Byzantine odyssey in which he ends up discovering more about each sister’s mysterious past than either of them ever wanted him to know."

Two Miles of Darkness

Earl Emerson

2015

A Thomas Black novel.

"Tasked with the embarrassing job of finding a lost dog at the behest of an elderly family friend, PI Thomas Black’s quest for the dog quickly shifts into something dark and deadly when he learns the dog fled the scene of a double-murder/suicide. There’s something disquieting about the crime, as well as the hasty police dismissal of it. What’s worse, several weeks earlier, Black met two of the deceased, who told him they thought they were being followed. He assured them their paranoia was unjustified. Now he’s wondering how he could have been so wrong. As Black and his companion, Elmer (Snake) Slezak, work to unravel the crime, they uncover a convoluted trail leading back to the household of the wealthy centenarian who hired them to find the dog. Black soon uncovers a bizarre gambling ring in which wealthy young sociopaths wager huge sums on their ability to destroy ordinary lives for kicks."

Jackson Street

Earl Emerson

2015

A Thomas Black novel.

"Thomas is ambushed by unknown assailants on a Washington State ferry, pitched overboard and left for dead in Puget Sound. Thomas suspects the attack may be linked to the police brutality suit he’s investigating for his attorney wife, Kathy. After he is rescued from the sound, things heat up when Thomas stumbles upon a mummy as a consequence of tailing a local businessman with ties to the mayor’s office. At first the mummy seems unrelated to his work or the attack on him, but the corpse is gradually linked to several players in the case, including, oddly enough, Kathy’s client. As Thomas continues to investigate, he begins to unravel a conspiracy of murder and racial animus dating back almost two decades."