A Jack Taggart Mystery Series

Jack Taggart, an undercover Mountie, lives in a world where the good guys and the bad guys change places in a heartbeat. Taggart is very good at what he does. Too good to be playing by the rules, so the brass assign a new partner to spy on him. Taggart’s new partner discovers a society dependent upon unwritten rules. To break these rules is to lose respect, and to lose respect is to lose one’s life. Loose Ends is is a tale of violence, corruption, and retribution, but it is also a story of honour and respect.

2008 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize — Longlisted Jack’s life and career are on the line in a gritty return to the dark Vancouver underworld of Loose Ends. RCMP detective Jack Taggart has avenged the murders of his niece and nephew, but the consequences linger. His deal with Damien, leader of the "Satans Wrath" motorcycle gang, has put him in a bind and jeopardized an informant in the gang. Meanwhile, other gang members led by a mysterious figure known only as "The Boss" have been working to eliminate Taggart by destroying the lives of anyone with connections to him. And if the bad guys aren’t enough of an obstacle, there are problems on the force itself. Assistant Commissioner Isaac is becoming more and more suspicious that Jack may have been responsible for the death of a corrupt Crown prosecutor. With Jack’s life and career on the line, Above Ground is a tough and gritty follow-up that will more than satisfy readers who were pulled into the dark Vancouver underworld by Loose Ends, the first Jack Taggart mystery.

Undercover operative Jack Taggart is hurled into a world where morality, justice, and the legal system are pitted against one another. Taggart investigates the murder of someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wiretap information identifies a shadowy gang member known only as “Cocktail” as being responsible. Taggart and his partner go undercover to join one of a coalition of gangs who are at war in British Columbia. Their mission is to identify Cocktail and gain evidence to convict him of murder. Taggart soon finds himself knee-deep in drive-by shootings, meth labs, retaliatory murders, and date rapes. An offer of a truce brings Taggart, along with gang bosses, to a remote location to discuss a peace agreement. But Cocktail has been a step ahead of them the whole time.

Undercover detective Jack Taggart infiltrates a Mexican drug cartel while investigating the disappearance of a young Canadian woman. Lily Rae is on holiday in El Paso, Texas, when she’s kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel. El Paso borders on one of the most dangerous places in the world: Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a city in the grip of a drug war. Going undercover to investigate her disappearance, detective Jack Taggart manages to penetrate the organization after discovering a Canadian link to the cartel. Taggart is sent to El Paso, where he is partnered with U.S. Customs special agent John Adams. Neither Taggart nor Adams know they have been paired for a secret purpose. Even though Taggart has strict orders to stay out of Juarez, his gut instinct tells him the answers — and possibly Lily herself — lie across the border. Still, the investigation seems to be going smoothly, until a leak threatens to expose Jack to the murderous cartel. Practically torn from the headlines, Birds of a Feather will keep you on the edge of your seat and leave you questioning right and wrong.

In this gut-wrenching sequel to Loose Ends and Above Ground, Jack Taggart’s quest for justice takes him from the beaches of Cuba to the ghettos of Hanoi. Jack Taggart is an undercover Mountie whose quest for justice takes him from the sunny, tourist-laden beaches of Cuba to the ghettos of Hanoi. His targets deal in human flesh, smuggling unwitting victims for the sex trade. In a story fraught with raw emotion, Jack finds his partner accusing him of carrying out a personal vendetta, until he reveals the secret driving him forward. This is the world of the undercover operative: a world of lies, treachery, and deception. A world where violence can erupt without warning, like a ticking time bomb on a crowded bus. It isn’t a matter of if that bomb will go off — it is a matter of how close you are to it when it does.

While investigating a murder, RCMP undercover operative Jack Taggart finds himself in too deep when he tangles with an Asian organized crime syndicate and a rogue Chinese intelligence officer. When a seventy-five-year-old woman is killed in an apparently random car accident, it looks like a simple hit-and-run — until the car is linked to an Asian organized crime syndicate. Undercover operative Jack Taggart, who is called in to investigate, quickly identifies a top crime boss as the perpetrator, but he must still figure out how to infiltrate the man’s inner circle. Taggart approaches a young Chinese woman on the fringes of the syndicate and tries to coerce her into becoming his informant. Unbeknownst to him, the young woman is actually a Chinese spy working for a rogue intelligence officer known only as Mr. Frank. When she offers to introduce Taggart to the crime boss, he jumps at the chance, hoping to gain evidence about the murder. But Taggart gets more than he bargained for when Mr. Frank draws up a deadly plan of murder and deceit to hide his trail.

After a cheap handgun sets Jack on the trail of a heroin importer, he winds up in the lair of one of the largest Yakuza crime families, caught in a deadly clash of criminal cultures. This intriguing, suspense-packed novel is the fourth in the Jack Taggart Mystery series, continuing the story of Loose Ends, Above Ground, and Angel in the Full Moon. This time, the implacable Mountie Jack Taggart goes undercover to follow the trail of a cheap “Saturday-night special” handgun found at the scene of a murder. He traces the gun from the manufacturer to the person it was stolen from, and through several criminals, until the trail leads him to a suspected heroin importer. Posing as an Irish gangster to penetrate the criminal organization, Taggart discovers that the real crime boss is a mysterious figure out of Asia. Alone and without backup in the lair of one of the largest Yakuza organized crime families in Japan, Taggart finds himself caught in a deadly clash of criminal cultures.

In his seventh appearance, undercover agent Jack Taggart is forced to play a risky game, making a deal with one devil to bring down another. Corporate Asset takes undercover operative Jack Taggart into the world of white-collar crime and murder. Insurance companies are being bilked out of millions of dollars. Multiple murders take place right under the cops’ noses but being written off as accidental. Taggart gets a whiff of what is going on when he captures a drug trafficker willing to expose one of the murderers connected to the plot. The problem is the new informant is also a serial rapist. Corporate Asset pits Taggart against the gut-wrenching proposition of letting a rapist go in order to catch a serial killer. It is a race against time to catch the murderer before the rapist strikes again.

Seeking justice for the murder of a fellow cop, Jack Taggart goes undercover to penetrate a gang whose leader is the culprit. Jack Taggart is out for justice, and just a little revenge, when he goes undercover as a pimp to hunt down the murderer of a cop to whom he owes an everlasting debt of gratitude. Embroiled in a mysterious international crime syndicate, for once Taggart might be in over his head. It seemed like a simple investigation of a drug trafficker at first, but when Taggart gets a desperate call for help from one of his informants, he falls headlong into a ruthless network of black marketeering and murder orchestrated by an elusive mastermind. After an Interpol agent is compromised and assassinated, Jack is drawn deeper into the web of crime as things get personal. Despite the constant risk of exposure, Jack is getting close, but any mistake could be fatal. As his allies fall, the only protection Jack has left is a stolen painting that might as well be a bullseye on his back.

In the tenth Jack Taggart Mystery, Taggart goes head to head with a longtime enemy who’s been eluding him for years … Jack Taggart is once again going head to head with his nemesis, Damien Zabat, national president of the Satans Wrath Motorcycle Gang. Taggart and Zabat’s lives have long been intertwined by a violent history of retribution and murder, dependent on unwritten rules of conduct — rules far outside the parameters of the law, but that each man feels are just. To Taggart, Zabat represents an unspeakable evil. He has eluded justice and left behind a trail of death. As Zabat approaches retirement, his son, Buck, joins the gang. When Taggart obtains evidence to send Buck to jail, he gives Zabat two days to disclose the details of a new European cocaine connection in exchange for his son’s freedom. Zabat’s refusal leads Taggart to gamble with his own life in a desperate attempt to destroy the man he has long been after. It is a gamble he wishes he had never taken.

The eleventh Jack Taggart Mystery pits Taggart against the ruthless new leader of the Satans Wrath Motorcycle Gang. After the new leader of the Satans Wrath Motorcycle Club ordered the murder and torture of three people — one who was wrongly suspected of being an informant — a bloody message painted on the wall at the murder scene is personally addressed to Jack Taggart. Horrified by the discovery, Taggart’s shock turns to rage when the bikers’ next stop is to his home. When a new assistant commissioner orders Taggart to stay clear of the bikers, Taggart forms a deadly plan of vengeance to deliver justice as only he could.

Taggart takes on gangs armed with sophisticated weapons who are battling for control and spreading terror in British Columbia. The twelfth Jack Taggart Mystery sees criminal gangs armed with sophisticated weapons battling for control in British Columbia — spreading terror through indiscriminate violence. Jack Taggart discovers the guns are being smuggled into Canada from the United States. After a fellow officer is murdered in cold blood, Taggart goes undercover to infiltrate a white supremacist faction to track down the killers. He soon finds himself unarmed and without backup in the fortress-like compound of the leader, a self-proclaimed survivalist. All is going well — until his cover is blown and he is caught within the compound with nowhere to escape.

The thirteenth Jack Taggart Mystery pits Jack against a group of ruthless kidnappers. The thirteenth Jack Taggart Mystery pits Taggart and his team against a group of ruthless kidnappers who have insider knowledge of police investigations within the Major Crimes Unit. He identifies one of the kidnappers and goes undercover with new operative Alicia Munday in an elaborate sting to lure the rest of the gang into a trap. Taggart is with the kidnappers on the day the trap is to be sprung, but he discovers they’ve already kidnapped another victim and they are both to be murdered in the belief that the police will pin the kidnapping on him. Still deep undercover, Taggart will have to come up with a risky plan for their survival before it’s too late.