"A founding father of the American conservative movement, Russell Kirk (1918-1994) was also a renowned and bestselling writer of fiction. Kirk's focus was the ghost story, or "ghostly tale"-a "decayed art" of which he considered himself a "last remaining master." Old House of Fear, Kirk's first novel, revealed this mastery at work. Its 1961 publication was a sensation, outselling all of Kirk's other books combined, including The Conservative Mind,...

San Francisco homicide inspector Ben Raveneau, and his ambitious new partner, Elizabeth la Rosa, catch their first case together when a young woman is found strangled in an empty building in China Basin. The victim's identity is unknown, a false confession leads nowhere, and the case spins unresolved. Meanwhile, the death of cancer-ridden homicide inspector Ted Whiteacre raises questions about an old case Whiteacre solved years before when he arrested...

The abduction of a confidential informant draws game warden John Marquez into a desperate race to find the missing woman and into an investigation that leaves him in the middle of a confrontation between the Russian mob and the FBI.