In 2000, I became fascinated with Greater Pittsburgh’s patchwork approach to law enforcement. As I write in the first Chief Novak novel, “Boyleston was one of 130 municipalities in Allegheny County, ranging in population from Pittsburgh’s three hundred thousand to Haysville’s seventy. They were served by 109 police agencies, some employing only one officer, many distinguished by their levels of ineptitude.”
How, I wondered, would a retired professional officer go about cleaning up a dysfunctional police department in his own borough? The Chief Novak series came out of that question. There are two books in the series, with a third coming out later in 2023. You can preview and/or purchase both novels here.
Novak’s Mission: The first Chief Novak novel
Law enforcement and small town politics make a lethal combination. When Karol Novak is hired to restore public confidence in a scandal-ridden small-town police force, a young girl’s birthday wish plunges him into a three-decades-old murder case, forcing him to choose between duty and justice.
From the author of Sins of Omission and Breaking News comes a fast-moving police procedural and an appealing love story reflecting Pittsburgh’s patchwork approach to policing.
Novak’s Quest: The second Chief Novak novel
A new Chief Novak novel in the acclaimed series set in the Pittsburgh area:
Police Chief Karol Novak’s planned retirement is sidetracked when a dying man’s wish draws him into investigating the unsolved murder of a young woman two decades before. As the investigation unfolds, Novak and his team discover a similar unsolved murder. Are the two deaths related or are they the work of a serial killer? While they work to answer these questions, this small, undermanned police force must also find a three-year-old child who has disappeared without a trace.
Lewis, the Scrivener 