Books in order of publication
Short Stories in order of publication
-- Mysteries
-- Horror/Dark Suspense
-- Romance
1980 -- Death is Forever
1981 -- Run from Nightmare
1985 -- Dangerous Charade
1986 -- The Bogeyman
1988 -- Dark Visions
1989 -- Hit & Run
1991 -- Set-Up
1991 -- Something's Calling Me Home
1992 -- Dark Time
1994 -- Trade-Off
1994 -- Maxine O'Callaghan Bibliography 1974-1995
1996 -- Shadow of the Child
1997 -- Only in the Ashes
1997 -- Down for the Count
1980 -- Death is Forever, Raven House Mysteries
1981 -- Run From Nightmare, Raven House Mysteries
1989 -- Hit & Run, St. Martin's Press (paperback release, St.
Martin's Press 1991)
1991 -- Set-Up, St. Martin's Press (pb release, Worldwide, 1994)
1994 -- Trade-Off, St. Martin's Press (pb release, Worldwide,
1996)
1997 -- Down for the Count, St. Martin's Press
1996 -- Shadow of the Child, Berkley/Jove
1997 -- Only in the Ashes, Berkley/Jove
1986 -- The Bogeyman, Tor Books
1988 -- Dark Visions, Tor Books
1991 -- Something's Calling Me Home, Pocket Books
1992 -- Dark Time, Berkley/Diamond
1985 -- Dangerous Charade (Marrissa Owens), Silhouette Intimate Moments
1974 -- "Sorry, Frank," Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (Jan.,
1974)
1974 -- "A Change of Clients," (Delilah West) AHMM (Nov., 1974)
1977 -- "An Insignificant Crime," Ellery's Queen's Mystery Magazine
(Feb., 1977)
1987 -- "The Sweet Old Lady Who Sits in the Park," Murder California
Style, St. Martin's Press
1990 -- "Exit," After Hours (Summer, 1990)
1991 -- "Wolf Winter," Sisters in Crime 4, Berkley
1994 -- "Bad News," (Delilah West) Deadly Allies II, Doubleday
1994 -- "Deal With the Devil," (Delilah West) Maxine O'Callaghan
Bibliography, ASAP
1995 -- "Wuffs," (with Brandon Apperson), Great Writers & Kids Write
Spooky Stories, Random House
Death is Forever -- Delilah wakes up in a seedy hotel--with the corpse of the man who killed her husband, Jack West. Worse, he's been stabbed by a knife that is part of a set from her own kitchen. The police plan to look no further for the murderer--who had a better motive than she did? Delilah has to prove her own innocence by finding who hired the small-time hitman who killed Jack.
Run from Nightmare -- Still grieving and trying to hold her life together, Delilah looks for Janet Valek. Two people who knew Janet turn up murdered: a blind woman and an artist who painted lewd portraits and used them for blackmail. Delilah uncovers Janet's dark past and finds more than one person who wants Janet dead.
Hit and Run-- Her PI business has gone from bad to worse. To make ends meet Delilah sleeps in her office and moonlights as a waitress. Then she is nearly run down by a hit-and-run driver. After the car roars off, she discovers the body of an elderly man in the road. Her report results in the capture of the driver, a defiant teenager who claims the body was in the road before he hit it. When his mother begs to Delilah to investigate, Delilah has enough troubling doubts to take on the case.
Suddenly, instead of no romantic prospects, Delilah has two attractive men in her life: Public Defender Matt Scott who represents the boy and Erik Lundstrom, a rich, successful land developer introduced to her by her old acquaintance Charlie Colfax. When Erik offers her a cushy job as head of security for his company, she feels she has no choice but to accept. She tries to wrap up the current case, but the investigation gets more complicated, revealing layers of intrigue, which include the fact that Erik is keeping secrets related to the case. She breaks off the relationship. Things turn deadly, and she finds herself in an after-hours game of hide and seek in upscale South Coast Plaza mall.
Set-Up -- Delilah uncovers a thief stealing from the local "Save Our Parks" fund: a young woman who works for an Orange County Supervisor. When the woman is murdered, a prominent local Councilwoman and environmental activist is arrested for the murder. Delilah realizes the theft was a setup and the councilwoman may have been framed. She takes on the case and finds herself in a face-off with the powerful Supervisor. Reluctantly, she turns to Erik Lundstrom for help.
Working behind the scenes, Erik has made sure her business is on the upswing--whether she wants his help or not. And her feelings for him are stronger than she wants to admit. Soon Matt realizes this, too. Meanwhile, Delilah and her young assistant, Danny Thu, narrowly escape death when her office is blown up by a letter bomb. Old loves and old hatreds provide clues to solve the case--if only Delilah can survive being left tied up in a fishing shack with another bomb.
Trade-Off-- A missing teenage girl seems like a routine case--until Delilah finds a decomposing corpse next door to the girl's house. Fearing that the missing girl may have witnessed the murder, Delilah must find her before the killer does.
Meanwhile, she can no longer deny her growing attraction to Erik, even though they have nothing in common. Her friends think she's nuts to resist the man the society column's have dubbed as Orange County's Most Eligible Bachelor.
Drugs and desperation are the threads that draw Delilah to the local mountains where she finds the girl and faces the killer in a last-ditch effort to save both their lives.
Synopses of other novels to come...
Updated January 25, 1998