Böcker utgivna av OTF Literary, LLC

An easy case turns deadly, spiraling down into the kind of bloody chaos that the streets of Chicago know only too well as the heart-pounding twists in this must-read mystery thriller keep coming and coming.Still grieving the death of his wife, Marlo, and wasting away in a retirement forced upon him under a cloud of suspicion, Raymond "Mack" Mackey finds a new job with the Chandler Illinois Police Department. It might be reason for hope. Or not. Mack can't seem his to shake his reputation for corruption. Undeserved, sure, but most of his colleagues want to see him locked up or dead anyway.A welcome diversion shows up in the form of Nadia King, an alluring single mother who asks Mack to recover a missing heirloom: an antique Russian nesting doll that belongs to Nadia's immigrant mother.It might just be the easiest assignment he's ever had.Until it isn't.Just like the woman on his doorstep and the doll she wants him to retrieve, appearances are not what they seem. Success, and even Mack's own redemption, requires separating truth from deception as he travels a path fraught with danger, littered with bodies, and confounded by cold homicide cases suddenly coming back to life.Like, for example, the popular Chicago restauranteur, gunned down in his bedroom. Or, the casino manager, bludgeoned by his own employees. Or, the police officer, shot to death in the home of his widowed mother as she listens, bound and gagged, from the kitchen.Not to mention the bald giant with a broken poker chip in his pocket and Mack on his mind. Maybe he works for Big Man. It seems like almost every criminal and most of the cops in the city work for Big Man.It's also starting to seem like Big Man has developed a strange obsession with Ray Mackey.If Mack can keep himself alive, he has a chance to clear his name and salvage his career. But Big Man is always watching, with a thousand eyes and from every corner of the city. Marlo is still dead. The Russian doll knows everything, but she isn't talking. The only one who can truly look out for Mack... is Mack.This astounding sequel to Message in a Bullet (shortlisted as the Best Mystery Novel of the Year by FORWARD Indies Best of the Year Awards), is the latest thrilling noir detective novel in multi-award-winning author Owen Thomas' Raymond Mackey Mystery series. The Russian Doll is a unique and exhilarating read that's packed with high-octane action and page-turning suspense.

Raymond Mackey is a struggling crime writer. His friends call him Mack. But friends are in short supply these days. Mack's thirty years as a homicide detective came to the kind of abrupt, ignominious end that tends to make friends dry up and blow away. It matters little that Mack was never actually a mole working for a shadowy, seemingly omnipresent mob boss. Somehow, the evidence was there anyway and the scandal ended everything for him overnight. Lucky to stay out of prison, Mack lives in a netherworld of forced retirement, spinning his memories of old homicide cases into pulp fiction and working part time as a shopping mall cop. His wife Marlo, the greatest criminal investigator Mack has ever known, has been dead of pancreatic cancer for nearly five years. That leaves his ancient Smith-Corona Corsair, a pack of Camels, a bottle of Old Forester, and Marlo's bourbon-loving cat, Phil, as Mack's only company.Almost. Because Mack also keeps himself company. The psychiatrists call it Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder. Mack calls it Triple-D. But crazy also works. It means he watches himself, usually from an overhead perspective, as though someone has tied a floating camera to a back beltloop on a long string. It makes him feel watched, and not by someone inclined to judge him kindly. So Raymond Mackey comes complete with his own Greek chorus. "Watch yourself, Mack," people tell him. He has no choice.When one of Mack's old informants goes missing and Mack's face turns up in a dead man's camera, his past comes roaring painfully back to life. Now the police want him for questioning, the mob want him dead and it's increasingly difficult to tell who, exactly, is working for who. As a mercilessly hot Chicago summer finally breaks and it starts to rain bodies, Mack finds himself past his prime for this kind of action. Retirement has added weight and subtracted agility. He hasn't fired a weapon in years. His antiquated cell phone will not stop ringing with a mysteriously blocked number. In the end, as Mack watches himself from above, it is razor-sharp instinct, cheap consumer electronics and his dead wife that offer his only hope.