The Dakota Stevens Mystery Series

A Real Piece of Work — #1
The Rich Are Dif­fer­ent — #2
A Truth Stranger Than Fic­tion — #3
The Per­fect Triple Threat — #4
A Study in Crim­son — #5

Dako­ta Stevens is a clas­sic PI for the 21st cen­tu­ry, com­bin­ing the wit and grit of Mar­lowe and Spenser with the sleuthing skills of Sher­lock Holmes.

As a for­mer FBI agent with expe­ri­ence in the field and the lab, Dako­ta employs a broad set of inves­tiga­tive tech­niques to solve his cas­es, includ­ing tra­di­tion­al “luck and pluck” gumshoe work, foren­sic sci­ence and infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy. Tall, MIT-edu­cat­ed and always well-dressed, he enjoys ten­nis, pool and horse­back rid­ing, and has a fatal weak­ness for beau­ti­ful red­heads.

As for Dako­ta’s “Wat­son,” she is any­thing but. A Ukrainian–American chess cham­pi­on with run­way legs, preda­tor eyes and flu­en­cy in sev­en lan­guages, Svet­lana Krüsh brings world­ly sophis­ti­ca­tion to their cas­es, or, as Svet­lana would have you believe, she “solves the crimes and han­dles the mon­ey.”

In many oth­er mys­tery series the PI is a grit­ty out­cast, oper­at­ing on the fringes. Not so in the Dako­ta Stevens Mys­tery Series. Dako­ta is the rare exception—a suc­cess­ful PI—and although his agency is based in Man­hat­tan, Dakota’s cas­es fre­quent­ly take him and Svet­lana to far-flung and exot­ic locales around the U.S. and some­times the world.

Besides mere plot and “who­dunit,” the Dako­ta Stevens Mys­tery Series is notable for its strong writ­ing, engross­ing read­ers with crisp, quotable dia­logue; a vivid sense of place; and lush sen­so­ry detail.

The author’s aim is to give every read­er of the series—whether mys­tery buff, com­muter or leisure reader—a com­pelling, mem­o­rable read­ing expe­ri­ence.

 

Foot­note: The pho­to above, “Brook­lyn Bridge Traf­fic Leav­ing Man­hat­tan,” is by Clif­fano Sub­a­gio and is pre­sent­ed here under a Cre­ative Com­mons license. The pho­to was mod­i­fied from the orig­i­nal.