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Descubre un mundo infinito de historias

Escucha y lee

Marc Olden

Three hard-boiled mysteries featuring a tough as nails narcotics agent from “a master of intrigue and adventure” (New York Times–bestselling author Clive Cussler).

John Bolt is the best narcotics agent in D-3—the Department of Dangerous Drugs—and with his Colt .45, he’s out to make dangerous criminals pay, dead or alive …

Narc: Bolt is out to stop New York City’s toughest drug dealer from scoring one thousand pounds of uncut heroin from Cuba. It will be the biggest shipment in history, and everyone’s dying to get their hands on it …

Death of a Courier: Bolt’s ex-partner is now a mafia enforcer. Known as Apache, he’s working his way up the mob ladder by taking down D-3 agents—and he’s about to have a bloody reunion with Bolt …

The Death List: John Bolt is after a dying drug kingpin’s little black book. Finding it would be the greatest bust of his career—but it means going up against a fearsome gang of corrupt cops.

MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

The Narc Series

The Narc Series Volume One: Narc, Death of a Courier, and The Death List

A narcotics agent comes between a dealer and the biggest heroin shipment in history

One thousand pounds of uncut heroin. Street value: a quarter of a billion dollars. New York’s baddest dealer is a preening hustler named St. James Livingston, and his latest scheme will make the French Connection smuggling operation look small-time. The shipment is coming in through a Cuban diplomatic mission, and when it arrives Livingston won’t just make a fortune. He’ll make history. Only John Bolt stands in his way.

The meanest narcotics agent in the country, Bolt arrests Livingston’s supplier during a South American raid. But cutting off the head won’t kill this snake. Too many junkies are hungry for smack, and too many crooks are desperate for profits. The biggest shipment in history will also be the bloodiest, and Bolt stands to make a killing.

Narc

To break the mafia, Bolt must face his murderous ex-partner

Narcotics agents aren’t supposed to ride horses. But today John Bolt is tailing a drug courier in Central Park, and in two feet of snow, horseback is the only way to ride. When he hears the pop-pop-pop of a .32 pistol, he knows his man is dead. Bolt charges to the scene, and the gunmen open fire. They kill his horse, and Bolt avenges the animal. As one of the killers bleeds into unconsciousness, he says they were sent by Apache.

Apache. Codename for Paris Whitman, a former top man in Bolt’s department who flipped to the other side. Now a mafia enforcer, Apache is working his way up the mob ladder by targeting his old colleagues. Once, he and Bolt were partners. Now they fight each other in a duel to the death that will determine whether the trickle of drugs into this country stops, or becomes a flood.

Death of a Courier

A kingpin loses his little black book, and every pusher in the city will kill to find it

His name is Mr. Church. He is a drug kingpin whose empire stretches across six cities in the Northeast. And he is about to die. A rival dealer hires a gang of corrupt cops to end Church’s reign—not just to get him out of the way, but to get ahold of his list. This small notebook holds the names of the couriers, suppliers, and crooked politicians who make the international drug trade run smoothly. The hit comes off, but the list vanishes. Whoever finds it will become one of the richest criminals in the country—assuming he lives to collect his first payment.

Refereeing the melee is John Bolt, a narcotics agent with a hair trigger and a moral compass that’s pointing him right at the heart of this war. Finding the list could mean the biggest bust of his career, and he doesn’t mind killing to get his hands on it.

The Death List

To escape jail, a pusher takes out a contract on everyone in Bolt’s department

The Delgado cocaine operation is more than a business. It’s an empire, supplied by a direct line to the coca plants of South America. Delgado’s soldiers are not common hoods, but a cadre of teenage boys chosen for their loyalty—and beauty. But now one of his lovers has failed him, allowing crack narcotics agent John Bolt to build a case against the kingpin. Delgado will handle his legal defense the same way he rules his evil empire: with murder.

There are nine names on the list Delgado gives the killer. Eight are witnesses against him, whose deaths will assure Delgado’s freedom. The ninth is Bolt’s, who will die for turning Delgado’s boy. But Bolt serves justice as ruthlessly as Delgado serves evil, and the dealer will find this narc has a kill list of his own.

The Delgado Killings

Only Bolt can save New York from an alliance between the Chinese and Italian mobs

In a dank Chinatown gymnasium, a dragon prepares for the parade. As the teenagers inside the monster practice its ungainly walk, four Sun Eagles surround them and open fire. Trapped inside the dragon, the small-timers never have a chance. For the crime of stealing Sun Eagle heroin, they die on the gymnasium floor.

The hit puts the Sun Eagles at the top of the Chinatown heap, in position to strike the bargain that will make them rich. Sick of sitting on the sidelines in New York’s drug skirmishes, a mafia capo buys $4 million in Sun Eagle smack to use as a war chest in the bloodiest campaign the city’s streets have ever seen. Standing in his way is narcotics agent John Bolt, a one-man army who can match any dragon, Chinese or otherwise.

Kill the Dragon

On the verge of death from two gunshot wounds, Bolt vows revenge

They call him Black Beauty, because he is the most gorgeous thief the drug world has ever seen. Where some are content to make a living ripping off dime-bag hustlers, Black Beauty steals from big-time dealers, taking profits from international cartels to keep himself rich, well-dressed, and smiling. His latest score netted him $850,000, along with the twenty-two kilos of cocaine the money was intended to buy. To get it he killed four men, and left one narcotics agent to bleed to death in a parking lot. Before long, Black Beauty will wish he finished the job. 

John Bolt is too tough to let a pretty boy kill him. As soon as he’s strong enough to lift a .45, he’s coming after Black Beauty—even if he has to take vengeance from a wheelchair.

The Beauty Kill

With a handful of agents, Bolt takes on the crown prince of European smuggling

Two French businessmen come to the United States to arrange an export deal. Normally the federal government would have no interest, but these Frenchmen are Corsican, and their product is the finest heroin in the world. For months the crime syndicate overseen by Count Napoleon Bonaparte Lonzu has stockpiled its smack, creating a worldwide shortage and sending demand through the roof. Now it is time to open the floodgates, and dump a colossal shipment of white heroin onto the United States. But the deal goes sour from the very start. 

Lanzu’s lieutenants run into John Bolt, a narcotics agent who makes the toughest Corsicans wilt. He only has a handful of operatives in his critically underfunded anti-drug detail, but Bolt will crack the Corsican syndicate if he has to cross the Atlantic to do it. Count Lanzu may have an army, but next to a determined American cop, every Napoleon looks small.

Corsican Death

After a narrow escape, Bolt goes after the mobster who tried to blow him up

As far as the record industry is concerned, Matteo DiPalma is a manager, a producer, and the hit-maker behind some of the decade’s biggest chart successes. To the federal government, he is a crucial link between drug-hungry musicians and the Rosetti crime family that keeps them supplied with heroin and cocaine. When federal agents nail DiPalma on a trafficking charge, John Bolt and six other cops go to California to escort him back east. The shotguns they carry aren’t to keep DiPalma from running, but to protect him from a Rosetti hit. The agents don’t count on death from above.

The mafia helicopter appears too quickly for the cops to react. Bolt is just outside the blast radius when the grenade hits the roof, vaporizing DiPalma and his guards. When the smoke clears, Bolt is bloodied but not broken—and ready to even the score.

Death Song

When an undercover op goes wrong, John Bolt loses his partner—and his pants

It’s cold in New York when federal narcotics agents Bolt and Kramer come to meet Angel Jarín, a dealer with a big mouth and a bigger supply. Masquerading as Detroit pushers, the agents are close to arranging a buy when Angel turns the tables on them. Three hoods dressed as cops ambush Bolt and Kramer in an alley, forcing them to strip naked and hand over their cash. Bolt realizes something’s wrong about the time his knees begin to freeze.

Blowing their cover would mean death, so the narcs play along even when the thugs take Kramer. They leave Bolt shivering in the alley, with forty-eight hours to collect a $75,000 ransom. As his numb fingers pick up his overcoat, Bolt decides the hoods are right. Somebody’s gonna pay.