Books published by Black Opal Books

Pete Gonzalvez knew from the start that the dead woman he and his partner, Tolya Kurchenko, discovered in a Manhattan apartment did not commit suicide. Pete knew her better than that. Mariela Comacho was the love of his life. The road to the truth winds through the slums of the Dominican Republic, the cold streets of Soviet Moscow, the hot sands of the Judean Hills, and into the dark clubs of New York City's underworld. They learn that Mariela was not merely murdered but was the most recent victim of an international serial killer-a phantom from Tolya's past-and Karin Kurchenko, nine months pregnant, could be in his cold-blooded crosshairs.Forgiving Mariela Comacho, the second book in the Forgiving series, is A. J. Sidransky at his best. A fast-paced thriller with witty, gritty dialogue and thoughtful perspective, its pages are rich with the engaging elements that continue to draw readers to Sidransky's unique prose.

In the brutal heat of an August "Dog-Day" afternoon, Detectives Tolya Kurchenko and Pete Gonzalvez climb the rickety stairs of a wood frame house to the third floor to find a sight so astounding it stops them cold. Inside a partially demolished wall sits something between a skeleton and a mummy in a double-breasted suit, Fedora still perched on his head. Who is this man? How long has he been here? How did he get here? The search for his identity opens a long-closed cold case which leads Kurchenko and Gonzalvez back to another murder they solved a few years earlier. The connections are just a little too close.From the immigrant rooming houses of upper Manhattan in the 1950s and 60s to the terrifying realities of Trujillo's iron-fisted Dominican Republic, from the ashes of the Holocaust to the children of its victims, Forgiving Stephen Rothman will grip you from page one. Sometimes, revenge is more important for the soul than forgiveness.

Newly estranged from Donna, The Introvert is selected as one of twelve jurors on a notorious murder trial, forcing him to navigate a litany of uncomfortable social interactions, this time with no avenue of escape. Equal parts harrowing and hilarious, The Introvert Bears Filthy Witness is the third entry in the life of one very anti-social and unexpected anti-hero.

While in the Lake District, journalist Emmeline Kirby and jewel thief/insurance investigator Gregory Longdon overhear a man attempting to hire international assassin Hugh Carstairs, a MI5 agent who went rogue. They race back to London to warn Philip Acheson of the Foreign Office and Superintendent Oliver Burnell. But it's a devil of problem to prevent a vicious killing, if the target is a mystery. More trouble brews as Emmeline pursues a story about shipping magnate Noel Rallis, who is on trial for murder. Rallis is desperate to keep the negative publicity from exposing his illicit schemes, especially something sinister called Poseidon. Lord Desmond Starrett, whose dark past made him easy prey for blackmail, is getting cold feet about their dubious partnership. Hovering in the shadows of this ugly secret world is a Russian mole buried inside MI5. Scorned prima ballerina Anastasia Tarasova makes the fatal mistake of threatening to reveal all she knows. The hunt for the answers takes Emmeline and Gregory up to Scotland, where they learn that the truth has lethal consequences.

The hypothetical question, “What if?” has been bandied about for years. The response—always the same. ”Impossible, never, couldn’t happen”, or “too many checks in the system.” No one could just take over The United States—or could they?The murder of a junior senator and the investigation into that killing, by the top man in the U.S. Secret Service, becomes the pivotal point at which the mundane turns sinister. The “impossible” suddenly turns plausible. Clues, and the parties involved are as diaphanous as white smoke—faintly visible, but impossible to get a grip on.The clock is invisible and the time keeps ticking away. Who, how, and when are frustratingly evasive questions, and additional murders yield few clues if any. Can Sam and his small team thwart a plot that has international implications? The race is deadly and the stakes are the ultimate.Sam has only two other men he can depend on. Luis Arguela, his close assistant and Moshe, a close friend and Mossad agent (retired?). They are compelled to follow clues of no substance, murders without logic and vaguely possible suspects. The possibility that the president of the United States is somehow involved must also be considered.Operating in the U.S. with a foreign agency (Mossad) could get Sam fired or jailed, but he has no other options. Through intense, covert investigation they track down the perpetrators and bring together a collection of unusual allies to destroy an international plot, and in a convoluted manner that prevents the public from ever knowing how close the takeover was.

            Vietnam veteran Charlie Alderfer, having defied the odds and regained his health in the VA’s hospice, goes home to resume his well-earned retirement. He hires Ben, an 18-year-old high school senior, to help with heavier chores. The poor, shy kid is a hard-working athlete whom teachers, coaches, classmates, and their parents adore.            Until—Ben’s adoptive parents accuse him of assaulting their ten-year-old bio-daughter. The police and DA, pressured to close 90% of their cases without a trial, lie and terrorize Ben to plead guilty to something. In return, they’ll make the charges go away. Otherwise, he’d go to a super-max prison, labeled a sexual predator. Honest Ben believes them and makes something up about his early childhood.            Charlie, shocked to read the guilty plea in the newspaper, extracts the story from Ben, who has no idea why his parents, and the police, would do this to him. Outraged, Charlie takes Ben to a leading polygraph expert who verifies what Charlie knows of his character. But his family, police and DA refuse to back down. And the test isn’t admissible in court.            Charlie hires a criminal lawyer who withdraws the guilty plea. But Ben’s only defense is his word against a sweet little girl’s, which no jury would buy. Outraged by the impending miscarriage of justice, Charlie digs into the case, researching the players, their motives, and holes in the prosecution’s case. He’s appalled that everyone lies—except Ben. Charlie could not anticipate that his digging would expose Ben and himself to mortal danger from a much larger criminal enterprise in progress.  

Ballerina Dita Marx and her composer husband, Dan Di Bello, have a two o'clock appointment at the now-boarded-up Harlem Center for the Arts with board president, Arlen Van Aiken, whose board voted to close down the center, which was very painful for the community, as well as Dita and Dan. They want to retrieve The Phoenix, a statue created in memorial to three board members lost when the World Trade Center collapsed September 11, 2001. But Dita is late, and Dan goes into the center looking for Arlen, whom he finds murdered in the basement, bludgeoned with the very statue Dan has come to collect. When the bodies begin to pile up and Dan is later arrested for murder, Dita is outraged and determined to prove his innocence-even if it means risking her own life…

Forty-eight hours ago, a serial murder case that spanned nine years ended. Or did it?Four children intrude upon the scene of the suicide of Henry Slater, claiming he's their dad. Dr. Frank Khaos and Detective Sam Wright become their temporary guardians. The goal-to find the children's biological mothers. Or has Henry Slater added them to his dossier of kills? Through the investigation, the NYPD detectives and FBI Special Agent Brett Case uncover a kidnapping ring and do find the mothers, but are they fit-and willing to take their children back? As Sam and Frank fall in love with them over nine weeks, and the reality sets in, Libra, the Scale of Justice, kicks their butts. What's right for the children is against the law.Another case falls into Agent Case's lap. A murder spree and drug involvement with Jarrett Miller, Vicki Trenton's first husband. To make matters worse, Miller has ties to the biological parents of Dr. Khaos whom he has to travel to Florida to confront as a stipulation to the execution of Slater's will.How will Frank deal with the two people who've been his Achilles' heel his entire life, and will he and Sam get the family they desire so much?

Danger lurks in the forest…But Greg Gillie, a handsome Scot with a mysterious past, protects the Shrouded Isle and the lands beyond from the menacing fae.A woman's arrival disturbs the wee folk…Becca Shaw, an American widow, takes a family vacation to the island. Each day she remains, Greg struggles as more and more fae steal away from the forest hill and menace the people.Can the exodus be stopped?As the danger increases, Becca strives to repair her relationship with her still-grieving girls and befriend the suspicious villagers. Resisting their blossoming feelings for one another, Greg and Becca team up to find answers. Why are the fae escaping? How can Greg and Becca stop them?For their sake and the sake of the world, let's hope they're up to the task…Kilts and Catnip, the first book in a new fantasy series, is filled with sweet romance, delightful humor, and exciting adventure.

When Marabella Vinegar's favorite neighbor, Sam Lipschitz, dies, everyone, including the NYPD, thinks it was natural causes. After all, Sam was pushing eighty, with a heart condition. But Marabella knows Sam's heart problem was mild and under control with medication-and she's already acquainted with Sam's greedy relatives-so she doesn't think there was anything natural about it. Neither does her sleuthing sidekick, her mother-the-ghost-detective, who has recently dropped back into Marabella's life, happy to interfere again. Not only that, but Rose, another elderly neighbor, tells Marabella she overheard Sam arguing with someone in his apartment about money, and was threatening to change his will. Rose caught a shadowy glimpse of the person fleeing Sam's apartment and is worried the person saw her. The next day, Marabella finds Rose, severely injured, on the floor of the building's laundry room, saying she was pushed. Marabella can't convince her old nemesis, NYPD Detective, now Lieutenant, Rivera, that people are being murdered. So she vows to track the killer down with her mother's help, by investigating the heirs to Sam's considerable estate. Can she and her mother find the killer and get enough evidence to convince Rivera? Or is Marabella doomed to become the next victim?

It all happened so long ago. Does a murderer still stalk the small Connecticut village? Is he watching? Is he still killing? Local policeman, Gordy Powell, who lives on a small farm with an attached pond, is rarely put in harm’s way: traffic stops, car thefts, burglaries, an occasional runaway, domestic squabbles, etc. All that changes one horrible winter night in 1997, when a state senator’s daughter and grandchildren drown after their car spins out of control on the icy road and plunges into Gordy’s pond. When the pond is drained in an effort to straighten the road, a 1938 Chrysler is found on the muddy bottom, a bullet hole through the head of the skeleton in the front seat, and a sixty-year-old murder mystery unfolds. Is the killer still alive and living in town? Has he killed again and never been caught? Gordy must use his best investigative skills to solve the crime and capture the killer—except that the killer is also after him, wreaking havoc in Gordy’s life…

Sara Watson works in the HR department for a large investment firm and for years has had dreams about a guy with emerald green eyes in a place under water with a pink sky. Although in her waking life she is terrified of water, they make wild passionate love in her dreams in the Golden City under the sea. She thinks she's crazy, even more so when he, Thane, walks into her office. Thane convinces her to come with him under the sea, even though she is terrified. But when Thane is injured and loses his memory, Sara is all alone in a strange world where she's considered an outsider. Can Sara convince Thane she is his chosen mate, or will she be sent back to own world, doomed to a loveless, unhappy life?

Decades after migrating north to Cleveland, Ohio, from rural Louisiana, Tobias Winslow has made an uneasy peace with the past, including his own mistakes that led to a prison stint, and has found a way to thrive in the inner city. News of a murdered son, and the daughter that son left behind, forces Tobias to reassess his past and restructure his plans for the future. Christian Taylor and Joey Breaux, meanwhile, are students at a Cleveland-area historically black university who have vastly different worldviews, but are drawn together by an appreciation of family and, ultimately, a senseless, violent act. All three-Tobias, Christian, and Joey-are unknowingly tied together by a racially motivated killing in Louisiana decades earlier.

When aggressive television network news producer, Elle McCord, is assigned to Iraq at the beginning of the Gulf War, she feels her career is beginning to take off. But when her mother informs her that her elderly and ill aunt is about to give away the family farm to a mysterious stranger, Elle takes a detour to try and stop the man who is at the heart of it all.On the rural Pennsylvania farm, Elle's horrific childhood memories surface, and what she learns about the mysterious stranger who is swindling her aunt is nothing like what she expected.Elle finally leaves for Iraq, but when she arrives, she meets Faiza, her translator, who teaches her about the sacrifices of family and love and what home really means.

The Lost Kitchen: Reflections and Recipes from an Alzheimer’s Caregiver is an honest and heartfelt look at the hidden gifts of living with a parent with Alzheimer’s. Miriam Green weaves poetry, recipes and anecdotes into a nourishing whole as she details her family’s struggle to maintain balance–and laughter–in the face of her mother’s diagnosis and deterioration. Throughout this most personal of stories, Naomi has been Miriam’s greatest teacher. Together, they remind us how to love and laugh in a world that is often confusing and painful.

Senator "Poker John" Herbert of Louisiana will probably be the next President of the United States-unless a rumor about a secret in his past is exposed. It's a secret even he doesn't know about. Max Maxwell is sent to New Orleans to determine if the secret is true. Did Herbert father a mixed race child in his home state? If he did, does the child know who the father is and what impact can it have on the upcoming election? The search for the answers takes Max from Bourbon Street, the cane fields, and the bayous to a Saint John's Eve Voodoo celebration in his quest to find out the truth. Along the way, he sees what the government will do to destroy one of its own and how far it will go to protect that same person. One night of seeing That Old Black Magic in action is enough to last Max for a lifetime…if he has a lifetime left.

Grover Moss is bored. A former big-city detective, he misses the mind-numbing parade of bums, drug dealers, prostitutes, murderers, and violence only big cities can provide. He has followed the beautiful but capricious Chantal West to her home town buried deep in the thickets and swamps of South Georgia where he feels buried as well-until he discovers a reclusive wraith of a man who says he's murdered his father and buried his body under the floor of the mill, that is. As the Julia Springs Police Chief, Moss is intrigued enough to follow up on the story. But as he digs for the truth, he gets a bagful of shocks and discovers corruption on a massive scale…

Cast loosely in the mold of such hard-boiled detectives as Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe, Joe Gold is an old-fashioned kind of guy, adrift in a modern world he doesn't fully understand, full of characters he understands all too well. Times may change, but people don't. And being Jewish is just another hurdle.Down on his luck and behind on his rent, he's approached by his old mistress, Maureen, now married to the corrupt mayor of Central City, with a serious problem. Their daughter, seventeen-year-old Julie who has no idea that Joe is her real father, has been abducted from her summer camp in a blackmail attempt of some sort. Before she can give him any important details, Maureen is murdered, and Joe is left on his own to put together all the pieces of the puzzle and rescue his daughter. Complicating matters, it appears that someone is out to kill him too.Threading the dangerous needle that takes him through the seamy underbelly of Central City and Mayor Bill Wagner's corrupt administration proves to be a real challenge, and he's totally unprepared for what he finds at the end. The surprises don't end there, however, as he discovers in his next two cases: a man who believes he's a vampire, and another who purveys murder through the comments sections of a newspaper. Through all this, he's aided by Jenny Martin, his long suffering business partner and Girl Friday, who struggles to keep him on an even keel-and alive.

THE INTROVERT CONFOUNDS INNOCENCE continues the story of the eponymous anti-hero introduced in THE INTROVERT.With his life disrupted by an unscrupulous work colleague and a bully at his son Toby’s school, things go from bad to worse when his neighbor’s abusive boyfriend goes missing, plunging the introvert into the center of a murder investigation.Increasingly hounded by a meddlesome detective, and with his thoughts continually urging him to make people “red and open” and to “achieve it” with his girlfriend Donna, what follows is a sometimes brutal, oftentimes hilarious, and absurdist account of the life of one very anti-social and unexpected anti-hero. 

The apocalypse kills billions-numbers so large that most survivors' minds snap shut. Foes of the US have attacked with a bioengineered contagion that spreads around the world. One of only a few survivors, Penny Castro, ex-USN diver and LA County Sheriff's Deputy, reacts differently. She fights back and creates a life for herself where death is the common denominator. On a forensic dive, she is interrupted. When she surfaces, she finds all her colleagues dead, so she has to battle starvation, thirst, and gangs of feral humans until she ends up in a USAF refugee camp. A post-apocalyptic thriller for our times, Penny's adventures will entertain and shock you into asking, "Could this really happen?"

Back from destroying the New World Order's secret lunar facility and rescuing his wife's hybrid child from the hollow moon, FBI Special Agent Dan Arrow discovers that the NWO leader he killed might not be dead at all. Instead, he appears to be alive and has more up his sleeve-selling opportunities for older humans to be reborn in younger clones of themselves. Traveling to several places around the globe to investigate the NWO's new emerging agenda, Dan soon discovers more truth than fiction in modern conspiracy theories. The serpent he thought he had killed has more than one head, and the opportunity the NWO is peddling has an evil hidden agenda intended to enslave mankind. While attempting to behead the serpent, Dan escapes death in a frozen wasteland, and through Remote Viewing his wife Mona sees him captured, beaten, and dying. Can she find him in time to save his life and help him sever the serpent's last head?

World-renowned painter Thom Tyler is murdered in Georgian Bay, Canada. The consensus is that Tyler had no enemies. Why would anyone murder him?Detective Sergeant Eva Naslund goes to work with a homicide team from OPP Central. They find no useful blood, print, or DNA evidence. They turn to financial forensics and criminal psychology. Tyler's paintings are worth millions, yet he's deeply in debt to banks and his art agent. Just as the investigation opens a new lead, courtesy of Tyler's friend, J.J. MacKenzie, MacKenzie is murdered. The team is back to ground zero-with two murders to solve.

A mirror of questionable origins appears out of nowhere in a shipment of furniture. It calls to those it finds compatible. The owners soon find out why, and wish they hadn't. Can a mirror actually be possessed? What happens to the people it encounters?This chilling story takes place over several decades as the mirror becomes the possession of many different people. Who is immune from the call of the mirror, and what is it in the mirror that beckons? Pray you don't find out…