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William G. Tapply

A Boston lawyer investigates a prep school teacher's suspicious suicide. 

Brady Coyne never meant to become the private lawyer to New England's upper crust, but after more than a decade working for Florence Gresham and her friends, he has developed a reputation for discretion that the rich cannot resist. He is fond of Mrs. Gresham -- unflappable, uncouth, and never tardy with a check -- and he has seen her through her husband's suicide and her first son's death in Vietnam. But he has never seen her crack until the day her second son, George, leaps into the sea at jagged Charity's Point. 

The authorities call it a suicide, but Mrs. Gresham cannot believe her son, like his father, would take his own life. As Brady digs into the apparently blemish-free past of this upper-class prep school history teacher, he finds dark secrets. George Gresham may not have been suicidal, but that doesn't mean he wasn't in trouble.

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The Brady Coyne Mysteries

Death at Charity's Point

To solve a murder, Brady must find a copy of the world's rarest stamp. 

It is a small paper square with uneven edges, dark blue in color and bearing a smudged portrait of a long-dead king. It doesn't look like much to Brady Coyne, but the stamp known as the Dutch Blue Error is one of a kind -- a philatelic freak worth at least one million dollars. It is the prize possession of Ollie Weston, a wheelchair-bound Boston banker, and it is valuable enough that for its sake, several good men will die. 

A fellow collector contacts Weston, claiming to have found a second copy of the Error -- a claim that, if truthful, would destroy the stamp's value. Weston sends his attorney, kindhearted Boston lawyer Brady Coyne, to purchase the rogue stamp for two hundred fifty thousand dollars, but just before the hand-off, the collector is killed and the stamp disappears. 

Find the stamp and Brady will find the killer -- but that will involve risking another one-of-a-kind item: his life.

The Dutch Blue Error

Brady searches Red Sox Nation for a ballplayer's kidnapped son. 

For two years, Eddie Donagan was on track to become the greatest Red Sox pitcher of all time. Then one day, without warning, he went from unhittable to ineffective -- forcing him to drop out of the Majors before he even hit his prime. Attorney Brady Coyne met Donagan before he turned pro, and stays friends with him even as the faded star drifts into depression, disappearing from his wife and child for days at a time. Finally, the Donagans are thrown into crisis -- but it isn't Eddie's disappearance that causes it. It's his son's. 

One morning, ten-year-old E.J. leaves for his paper route and never returns. Soon, the family receives a ransom demand, and Brady agrees to be the go-between. He finds that the son's problems stem from the father's, and that Eddie Donagan has a dark side no amount of natural talent could overcome.

Follow the Sharks

Brady investigates what appears to be the murder of a homeless man. 

The man is found on the icy streets of Boston, vomit in his beard, alcohol in his system, and ice in his veins. The police assume he is just another in the dozens of derelicts whom the urban winter claims each year, but Brady Coyne knows better. Attorney to New England's upper crust, he was the dead man's lawyer, and he knows that Stuart Carver was no bum: He was a senator's nephew. 

An author whose last book was so lousy that it became a bestseller, Carver was planning a serious novel, and was doing research on homelessness in the metropolis when he was killed. The icepick wound on his skull suggests he learned something that someone didn't want to see in print. To find out who murdered his client, Brady will delve into an underworld that is even more cold, dark, and deadly than Boston in winter.

The Marine Corpse

In Maine, Brady investigates a deadly business deal. 

He may be a millionaire, but Vern Wheeler never forgot that he is a son of Maine -- land of big sky, wide lakes, and the fattest salmon on the East Coast. To escape the boardroom, he buys a rundown fishing lodge in the wilds of his home state, and with his brother turns it into the most fashionable retreat in New England. After years of happy fishing, the Wheelers have no interest in selling Raven Lodge. But a local Native American group won't take no for an answer. 

Claiming that Raven Lodge is located on protected land, the Native Americans threaten to sue for ownership of the property, and Wheeler sends his attorney, fishing enthusiast Brady Coyne, to negotiate. But when Brady arrives at Raven Lake, he finds danger in and out of the water. A fisherman has been scalped, and placid, idyllic Maine is about to erupt into mayhem.

Dead Meat

A politician's son gets involved in a murder, and drags Brady along with him. 

Running for governor on the Republican ticket, Tom Baron needs his image to be squeaky clean. He employs men like Brady Coyne, a compassionate Boston attorney, to keep problems far away from his campaign. But when his son doesn't come home one night, Tom's political strategy becomes a criminal matter. 

His son's girlfriend has been murdered, and the boy has no alibi. To protect his friend's political ambitions, Brady digs into the investigation, finding a trail of drugs and corruption that stretches far across the Eastern seaboard. 

Tom Baron may be his friend, but Brady Coyne will stomach no cover-up. If the son is guilty and Tom is involved, Brady will come down on the would-be governor with a fury that will make Boston politics look like a student council election.

The Vulgar Boatman

A private detective is dead, and Brady suspects it's murder. 

Les Katz may well be scum. A private detective, he does not hesitate to take the case when a Farrah Fawcett look-alike hires him to tail her husband. The photos he secures suggest the man is cheating on his wife, but they aren't definitive. Rather than disappoint his client, he contacts her man and offers to sell him the pictures. Katz considers this a charitable act, but to his attorney, Brady Coyne, it looks an awful lot like blackmail. 

Brady tells Katz to give the money back, fully expecting to be ignored. But when Katz is killed in a hit-and-run, he realizes blackmail wasn't the PI's only mistake: Les Katz was murdered to protect a terrible secret -- and a conspiracy that goes far beyond a single cheating husband.

A Void in Hearts

When a minister's son is accused of murder, Brady doesn't know whom to trust. 

Desmond Winters has had more trouble than a Unitarian minister deserves. Over six years ago, his wife disappeared with their fourteen-year-old daughter, promising to return someday. The daughter came back after six months;the wife never did. The experience scarred Desmond's son, Marc, who acted out by getting involved with cocaine smugglers and marrying an exotic dancer. Through all his troubles, Des was counseled by Brady Coyne, a sensitive lawyer to Boston's elite. But now something has happened that even Brady may not be able to fix: Marc's wife is dead, and the minister's son is the prime suspect. 

Marc finds Maggie dead in their boat, and calls the police immediately. Brady doesn't believe Marc murdered his wife, but he also knows that in this family, anything is possible. It could be drugs, it could be the missing mother -- but a beautiful young girl is dead, and Brady Coyne needs to know why.

Dead Winter

Defending a client, Brady gets himself implicated in a murder charge. 

Brady Coyne has known Chester 'Pops' Popowski since law school. An honest, battle-hardened Massachusetts judge, Pops is more soldier than scholar -- and has been known to defend what's right with his fists. After years on the bench, Pops has been nominated for a federal judgeship, with a possible Supreme Court appointment in his future. Only one thing stands in his way: blackmail. 

A TV reporter has evidence of a long-ago affair Pops conducted with a younger woman. Pops sends Brady, his genteel Boston lawyer, to tell the reporter he won't be getting any money. Soon after their meeting, the blackmailer is found dead. Brady refuses to name his client, and finds himself under suspicion of murder. Brady will do whatever it takes to keep Pops out of the papers. If he's lucky, he may even keep himself out of jail.

Client Privilege

When an aging big-game hunter is robbed, Brady goes on a leopard hunt. 

Six years after the leopard attack that ended his career as a professional hunter, Jeff Newton is broken, crippled, and ready to die. His only pleasure is the occasional visit from Brady Coyne, Jeff's no-nonsense Boston lawyer who's come to Cape Cod to pay his respects to the old man. 

As always, Brady is entranced by the ex-hunter's houseful of trophies, none more dazzling than the seven Mexican leopard figurines. Solid-gold statues with jewels for eyes, they are priceless, beautiful -- and about to be stolen. 

The thieves club Jeff, cut Brady, and escape with the golden cats, leaving the two men for dead. Jeff ends up in a coma, and Brady sets out to retrieve the trophies. If the old hunter ever wakes up, Brady wants the leopards to be there to greet him.

The Spotted Cats

For the sake of a dying client, Brady tracks down a prodigal daughter. 

Concord, Massachusetts, is littered with literary monuments, of which the historic Ames house is only a minor one. But to Susan Ames, nowhere on earth is more important than this colonial residence where Emerson and Thoreau once broke bread with her ancestors. Dying of cancer, Susan knows the house should stay in her family, but the only heir is her daughter, Mary Ellen, a wild child more likely to indulge in cocaine and motorcycles than transcendental poetry. Eleven years ago, she ran off with her college professor, and will need to be located before she can inherit the estate. 

Finding her falls to Brady Coyne, a good-hearted Boston attorney who knows his way around New England's dark parts. He will soon find that Mary Ellen's story is too tragic even for a great poet to contemplate.

Tight Lines

The murder of a Green Beret points Brady toward a chilling Vietnam cover-up. 

Daniel McCloud may grow marijuana, but as far as he's concerned, that does not make him a criminal. A Vietnam veteran still suffering from exposure to Agent Orange, he's found no help from the government and no relief outside of homegrown grass. When the local police in his small New England town bust him for possession, a friend reaches out to Brady Coyne, a Boston lawyer who usually works with New England's upper class. Brady is readying Daniel's defense when the case is inexplicably dropped. He's just beginning to wonder why when the veteran is found murdered. 

McCloud had written a memoir, but the manuscript is nowhere to be found. Someone killed the author to keep it from ever seeing the light of day. As Brady digs into McCloud's time in the army, he finds that this troubled vet made some enemies in the jungle.

The Snake Eater

Taking sides on gun control, Brady ends up in the line of fire. 

Over drinks one night at his Boston waterfront apartment, goodhearted lawyer Brady Coyne finds himself disagreeing with an old friend about a divisive subject: gun control. Wally Kinnick is no gun nut. But, an environmental activist and hunting expert, he believes so strongly in the right to bear arms that he has come to Boston to testify against an assault weapons ban. When he changes his position at the last minute, he finds himself with a bullet in the gut. 

Wally is public enemy number one on a recently released list of opponents to the second amendment;Brady is number seven. To keep himself from becoming another trophy on the wall, Brady must find the men who targeted his friend -- before the right to bear arms deprives him of his right to live.

The Seventh Enemy

A fellow lawyer disappears from his boat, and Brady suspects foul play. 

Although alleged criminals are considered innocent until proven guilty, acquittal doesn't make them saints. Boston lawyer Brady Coyne knows this all too well, but believes firmly enough in the right to counsel that he doesn't let it keep him up at night. His friend Paul Cizek, however, is another story. A rising young defense lawyer, Paul has made a name defending repugnant clients: hit men, child molesters, unrepentant drunk drivers. He's good at what he does -- so good that it's eating him alive. 

After an emotional confession to Brady, Paul takes his boat out onto the Merrimack River in the middle of a storm. When the coast guard finds the vessel, the lawyer has vanished. Did he die in an accident, or did the stress of his work convince him to end it all? Brady suspects murder, and he will do whatever it takes to understand how his friend died.

Close to the Bone

In the backwoods of Maine, Brady encounters a strange, racist conspiracy. 

Brady Coyne is far from Boston when he stumbles across his latest case. He's in the beautiful Maine countryside, fishing and spending time with his beloved Alexandria Shaw, when he meets Charlotte Gillespie on the side of the road. A beautiful middle-aged black woman, she's walking into town with her dog in her arms. The puppy is near dead, having been poisoned -- probably by the same person who spray-painted the swastika on Charlotte's property. After giving her a lift into town, Brady tries to find a way to help, but before Charlotte can explain her problems, she disappears. 

In unfamiliar territory, with a vanished client and rumors swirling around him, Brady tries to come to grips with the shadowy presence that has rotted this pleasant little town from the inside out. There are dangerous men in these woods -- and anyone who would poison a puppy won't hesitate to kill a man.

Cutter's Run

Brady helps a troubled ex-jock through a nasty divorce case. 

As a power forward for the Detroit Pistons, Mick Fallon distinguished himself with an unerring ability to hit late-game free throws. Years after his retirement, the passion and focus he once put into basketball have been repurposed for something less admirable: gambling. A secret, crippling addiction has emptied Mick's savings, ruined his marriage, and may be threatening his life. When his wife demands a divorce, Mick turns to Brady Coyne -- a lawyer with ethics -- with a seemingly simple case that turns out to be one of the nastiest this Boston attorney has ever encountered. 

Mick doesn't want a divorce -- he wants his wife back. When she is found savagely murdered in her living room, Mick is the natural suspect, but he has disappeared. To prove his client's innocence, and save his own life, Brady must learn something every ballplayer understands: To survive, you have to know how to hustle.

Muscle Memory

To help an old friend with a gambling problem, Brady confronts the Boston mob. 

Dalton Lancaster could have been a lawyer, but his heart wasn't in it. He quit Yale after his first year, and used his inheritance to go into the restaurant business, where he might have had some luck if he'd spent more time selling food and less time playing blackjack. As he gambled away his savings, restaurants, and family, his lawyer, Brady Coyne, stuck by him. So when Dalt is beaten up, but not robbed, by three mobsters, Brady can't help but think his friend is gambling again. But Dalton says he has kicked his vice. The attack wasn't a message to him -- it was to his son. 

Having inherited his father's addiction, Robert is in even deeper trouble than his dad ever was. When he fails to square things with his creditors, he's kidnapped, and Brady is forced to gamble on a long shot: that Robert Lancaster is still alive.

The Brady Coyne Mysteries - The book series

The Brady Coyne Mysteries - The book series

The Brady Coyne Mysteries books in order

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