William Von Reese: 6 books

An American seascape artist hides out in primitive Baja to escape the persecutions of his ex-wife. His satirical antics before visiting CNN cameras bury him in complications. DEA and intelligence agents, Mexican and Colombian drug runners, current wife and child and local village characters become entangled in serio-comic intrigue because of his frivolous caper.

Pepper is a college professor of English Lit who cannot get his own book published. Sick of rewriting and resumitting it, he tosses the ms into a recycling bin. Hank, the trash man, finds it. He has connections in the publishing world. Hank soon has a best-seller on his hands and a pending movie sale. The conflict between these two propels the action from Tucson to show biz in Santa Monica.

Brandon, a flaky LA millionaire, abuses his showpiece wife, Karla, by controlling her behavior and denying her a baby. Dave, his accountant/ghostwriter, relates Brandon's cruelty. The story reflects the effect of Brandon's lifestyle upon the naive narrator's own. Karla finally shoots Brandon dead, with surprising consequences. This murder is based on an actual event of the Nineties.

Velma is a star showgirl in Vegas at the time that bare-breasted spectacles were introduced during the Fifties. She becomes the mistress of casino boss, Marcus Lambrusco, and bears him a son. Senatorial investigations drive Lambrusco to exile in Sicily. Son Danny, raised by Velma in retirement,...

On divorce, Dan puts his months-old daughter, Lise, out for adoption. 17 years later, he comes down with an inherited disease, Vlad's Syndrome, which is fatal when it erupts in middle-age, but curable in the young. Dan must find his long-lost daughter--at once--and get her to treatment. He tracks Lise throughout the West, then to Mexico where he frees her from a manic fellow student.

Sam, executor of his best friend's estate after his suicide, falls for his widow, Melanie. She urges Sam to steal the assets, bearer bonds, which her husband perversely left to his parents, not her. She wants to run off to Tahiti with Sam in style. Unhappy in his own marriage, Sam is tempted. A burly...