Synopses & Reviews
No WarningIt begins with a bang-a routine search warrant and patrolman Emo Rojas is blown away. The shooter is a wanna-be cop with an illegal arsenal. But he's not the only one making the LAPD's Enemies List: ATF agents may have known Rojas was walking into a trap. Now the LAPD wants revenge.
No Accident
A clandestine war between the two agencies has begun, and it's already claimed two more victims, an ATF member and an L.A. sheriff, both taken out by snipers. The investigation into the murders is handed to homicide investigator Shane Scully, an honorable man now isolated between two hostile armies.
No Escape
As the payback for Rojas's death escalates, Scully and his wife-and boss-Alexa are swept up in a political firestorm that's burning everyone it touches. With time running out, and no one to trust, Scully is putting his career, his life, and the lives of everyone he loves on the line. But crossing it is the only way he can get to the truth.
"A fast-paced police story...I just did not want to put it down...hats off to Cannell.
He knows his crime stuff, and he can write a novel even better than the many successful TV shows he created." --San Jose Mercury News
"Action's been a reliable staple in the Scully series, but here Cannell gets the people right, too. The best yet for the Rockford man."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Review
"Readers will enjoy watching [Scully] puzzle out the twists and turns of the plot and watch breathlessly as he undertakes a climactic high-speed chase."-Publishers Weekly
"Cannell certainly knows how to tell a story...You'll probably read the entire book with a smile on your face." -Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A fast-paced police story...I just did not want to put it down...hats off to Cannell.
He knows his crime stuff, and he can write a novel even better than the many successful TV shows he created." -San Jose Mercury News
"Action's been a reliable staple in the Scully series, but here Cannell gets the people right, too. The best yet for the Rockford man." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Sharp dialogue, tight pacing...the work of a pro who hasn't forgotten any of his old tricks."
-Los Angeles Times Book Review
Synopsis
The Edgar and Emmy Award-winning writer and producer delivers a high-concept thriller of inter-bureau conspiracy and betrayal. "Scully has ample opportunity to prove how 'Hollywood tough' he is . . . veteran writer/TV producer Cannell has concocted his special brand of reader candy."--Kirkus Reviews.
Synopsis
A nightmarish series of events sweeps LAPD's Sergeant Shane Scully and his wife (and boss), Alexa, into the vortex of an enormous, jurisdictional firestorm.
First, a sheriff's deputy, a friend of Shane's, is gunned down while serving a routine search warrant. His fellow deputies blame the incident on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, whom they angrily accuse of having failed to warn them that the suspect had a huge arsenal of illegal weapons in his house.
Soon thereafter, a member of the ATF Situation Response Team is shot to death, followed by the sniper murder of the Sheriff's Special Enforcement Bureau. At the request of the Mayor, LAPD, as an uninvolved and unbiased agency, assigns Shane Scully to investigate.
He is given an impossible deadline to find a solution before these two elite and deadly SWAT Teams kill each other off amid a hurricane of horrible publicity. Shane pursues his investigation in a direction that neither his chief nor his wife agrees with, and succeeds in putting himself, his loved ones, and his career in terrible jeopardy before he finally discovers the shocking and deadly truth.
Synopsis
A nightmarish series of events sweeps LAPD's Sergeant Shane Scully and his wife (and boss), Alexa, into the vortex of an enormous, jurisdictional firestorm.
First, a sheriff's deputy, a friend of Shane's, is gunned down while serving a routine search warrant. His fellow deputies blame the incident on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, whom they angrily accuse of having failed to warn them that the suspect had a huge arsenal of illegal weapons in his house.
Soon thereafter, a member of the ATF Situation Response Team is shot to death, followed by the sniper murder of the Sheriff's Special Enforcement Bureau. At the request of the Mayor, LAPD, as an uninvolved and unbiased agency, assigns Shane Scully to investigate.
He is given an impossible deadline to find a solution before these two elite and deadly SWAT Teams kill each other off amid a hurricane of horrible publicity. Shane pursues his investigation in a direction that neither his chief nor his wife agrees with, and succeeds in putting himself, his loved ones, and his career in terrible jeopardy before he finally discovers the shocking and deadly truth.
Stephen J. Cannell's Vertical Coffin is an electrifying, fast-paced thriller.
About the Author
Stephen J. Cannell (1941-2010) was the author of the bestselling Shane Scully books, including The Prostitutes Ball, The Pallbearers, and Three Shirt Deal. He was also an Emmy Award winning television writer and producer, and in his thirty-five-year-career, he created or co-created more than forty TV series. Among his hits were The Rockford Files, Silk Stalkings, The A-Team, 21 Jump Street, Hunter, Renegade, Wiseguy, and The Commish. He received numerous awards, including the Saturn Award - Life Career Award (2004), The Marlow Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Writers of America (2005), and the WGA Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement (2006). Having overcome severe dyslexia, Cannell was an avid spokesperson on the condition and an advocate for children and adults with learning disabilities. He was a third-generation Californian and resided in the Pasadena area with his wife, Marcia, and their children.