The Cleveland Local

Cleveland private eye Milan Jacovich is looking into the death of bright young attorney Joel Kerner, Jr. What makes it so difficult is that Joel was killed nearly two thousand miles away while jogging on the white-sand beach of a Caribbean resort island called San Carlos. And although Joel's sister Patrice is the one who's hired Milan, Joel Kerner, Sr., one of the country's most famous labor lawyers, unaccountably wants him to drop his investigation. On a quick journey to San Carlos, Milan gets mixed up with organized crime on an international scale, which leads to a run-in with an Interpol cop and two knife-wielding marauders in a garbage-strewn alley, as well as an encounter with a couple of oversexed female tourists from Washington, D.C., who want to make Milan the highlight of their trip. Back on more familiar turf, the Slovenian-American gumshoe discovers there are plenty of people who want him to stop poking around in the affairs of Joel Kerner, Jr., including a labor leader who has some secrets of his own.

Les Roberts is the author of 13 mystery novels featuring Cleveland detective Milan Jacovich, as well as 9 other books of fiction. The past president of both the Private Eye Writers of America and the American Crime Writer's League, he came to mystery writing after a 24-year career in Hollywood. He was the first producer and head writer of the Hollywood Squares and wrote for the Andy Griffith Show, the Jackie Gleason Show, and the Man from U.N.C.L.E., among others. He has been a professional actor, a singer, a jazz musician, and a teacher. In 2003 he received the Sherwood Anderson Literary Award. A native of Chicago, he currently lives in his adopted home town of Cleveland Heights, Ohio.