When investigators are called to a meticulously staged crime scene on a canal bank in rural Central California―the latest in a series of murders that have killed three young women in one month―they realize a dangerous serial killer is on the loose, someone who is highly adept at hiding his tracks. And before the murderer can be brought to justice, young assistant DA Matt Jamison will lose his illusions about what justice means.
 As a fourth victim is abducted and investigators race against time, Jamison must cope with a sophisticated and elusive killer, a politically-minded sheriff eager to claim credit and spread blame, mounting pressure to win a high-profile trial, and his own conscience as part of the machinery of justice.
 A gripping, fast-paced, and coldly realistic thriller that tracks a killer from the crime scene to the courtroom and to a devastating aftermath, Fractured Justice is a stunning debut crime novel from a former investigator, prosecutor, and judge who intimately knows the real world of attorneys, detectives, and men who kill.

Fractured Justice (Matt Jamison, 1)

Literature & Fiction

Ardaiz, James A.

United States

Pace Press

Reopening a cold murder case uncovers disturbing secrets … and forces a young prosecutor to an agonizing decision.Everyone knew Rick Harker was guilty. Twenty-six years ago he murdered Lisa Farrow and set her body on fire. Lisa’s three-year-old daughter Christine identified Harker as the murderer, and he’s been in San Quentin ever since. But now the adult Christine Farrow is recanting her testimony―handing assistant DA Matt Jamison a case that will test his character and his convictions. While Harker’s idealistic attorney demands a new trial, Jamison retraces the original investigation, trying to find if there is any doubt of Harker’s guilt. When Jamison finds evidence of corruption in the DA’s office he is faced with a question that will shatter his lifelong relationships, endanger his career, and threaten his faith in the justice system: Is exposing the truth worth the damage?

Shades of Truth (Matt Jamison, 2)

Hands Through Stone: How Clarence Ray Allen Masterminded Murder from Behind Folsom's Prison Walls

Even hardened detectives were shaken by what they found at Frans Market in rural Fresno that night in 1980. Three young people lay in their own blood on the markets concrete floor, executed by a merciless killer, while a fourth victim barely held on to life. Then a grim investigation became even grimmer when the evidence led to the man who ordered the killings a convicted murderer already behind the walls of Folsom Prison. Hands Through Stone reveals the true story behind the Frans Market murders and their psychopathic mastermind, Clarence Ray Allen, the last man executed in California. Written by James Ardaiz, one of the first investigators on the scene and the prosecutor who built the case against Allen, Hands Through Stone gives the reader an insiders view of the tortuous, multi-year investigation that brought Allen to justice. Charismatic, controlling and terrifying a mystery even to those who knew him well Allen posed as a respectable businessman while running his private security company as a front for his burglary gang. Convicted in 1978 of the murder of accomplice Mary Sue Kitts, Allen orchestrated a bloody revenge while serving a life sentence, even ordering the murder of his own son. Ardaiz takes the reader step-by-step through every gritty, down-and-dirty piece of police work that painstakingly built the case against Allen, giving readers an unparalleled feel for what its really like to work a professional murder investigation. A true crime story that reads like an intricate mystery novel, Hands Through Stone dramatizes chilling scenes of murder, dogged investigation, and a gallery of quirky real-life characters no novelist could invent: cops, witnesses, victims, villains, and, above all, the enigmatic evil that was Clarence Ray Allen.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Craven Street Books

A sweeping novel of history, war, and courage in the face of injustice, Tears of Honor tells the story of the heroic Japanese American soldiers who fought against Nazi tyranny in Europe, while their families were imprisoned in America. Sammy and Freddy are two all-American boys in the summer of 1941, dreaming of becoming professional baseball players and maybe asking a girl to the senior prom. But when the war comes, Sammy Miyaki, Freddy Shiraga, and their families are seen as enemy aliens, not Americans. In San Francisco and Washington, General John DeWitt and Major Karl Bendetsen (the actual historical architects of the Japanese internment order) wage a bureaucratic war to persuade the government to give legal sanction to their plans to detain the Japanese population. As the Miyaki and Shiraga families are taken from their homes and placed in internment camps, Sammy and Freddy decide the only way to prove their loyalty to America is to join the Army. Assigned to an all Japanese American combat unit fighting against the Germans, Sammy and Freddy are placed under the command of the combat-hardened Lieutenant Young Oak Kim (a real-life person and one of the most highly decorated American soldiers in history), who leads them through some of the fiercest fighting of the war. Sammy, Freddy, and their comrades confront the prejudice of white soldiers and the horrors of combat, as they come to realize they are fighting not just for the United States, but for the honor of all Japanese Americans.

Tears of Honor

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ardaiz, James A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ardaiz, James A.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ardaiz, James A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Fractured Justice (Matt Jamison, 1)

Shades of Truth (Matt Jamison, 2)

Hands Through Stone: How Clarence Ray Allen Masterminded Murder from Behind Folsom's Prison Walls

Tears of Honor