In some parts of Philadelphia, you don't die, you don't get murdered, you don't commit suicide or fall off a roof or come home and light a cigarette when the oven pilot has gone out, blowing half the block to Kingdom Come. You get yourself dead. It was Benny Lunch who got himself dead, "Benny Lunch" because he believed that no matter how bad things got, no matter how much people hated each other and tried to kill each other, you could get them to sit down at a meal and work out their differences. He'd get them together and somehow arrangements were made, deals were greased, details would get ironed out and if you were to ask Ben how it came down, he'd just shrug his shoulders and say in that side-of-the-mouth way he had of talking that all he did was pick up the check. But Benny Lunch got himself dead. And now it is up to Benny Cosicki's daughter Andrea to find out who and why. Tall Andy, a demon with a basketball, just out of the University of Pennsylvania and aiming for a membership in the Newspaper Guild. Andy is going to find her father's killer -- because for sure he was killed; it was no accident. Benny Lunch knew the fire-ruined old neighborhood bar well enough to keep from falling through the second-story floor. Benny had met and married Andy's mother there; the bar had Benny's history in its blackened beams. So here is Andy, just hired by the Philadelphia Press to take over the Mr. Action column, which hasn't been in action for several months, citizen complaints piling up all the while. Andy quickly discovers that the quiet man next to her, "Shep" Ladderback, whose desk is always clean, has a cabinet full of files holding everything about everybody. He's also got a mind stuffed with memory and brains that work quietly and flawlessly, and she is more than lucky that he's taken it on himself to be her guide. Kent's years as a newspaperman in Philadelphia has been the perfect training for a book like Street Money. He knows the delicious details of the way politics works at the local level. He is as savvy about the scam artists fattening on the pretensions of the new suburban homeowners as he is about the former drug dealer who preaches hell-and-damnation in a deserted neighborhood bank. He takes us behind the scenes in a big-city newspaper. You could almost think of him as the live model for the all-knowing Ladderback. Between the assertive, independent, but still-learning Andy and the reclusive and somehow larger than life Ladderback, all sorts of wrongdoing and ill will is uncovered. It almost seems that with Benny Lunch's death, the things he was able to bury with his lunches, and thought were gone forever, are now surfacing to challenge his daughter. But having met Andy, we root for her as she accepts the challenge.

Street Money: A Mystery

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Kent, Bill

Mystery

Minotaur Books

Shep Ladderback, the Philadelphia Press's aged obit writer, mentors the young Andrea (Andy) Cosicki, fledgling journalist and daughter of the late political fixer,Benny the Lunch Cosicki. Ladderback (who knows everything about everyone in the city) wants Andy to cover the death of a street fruit and vegetable salesman, which seems to him to be suspicious. But Andy has a date for lunch at the Loup Garu, a so-hot-you-can't-get-a-reservation-for-three-months restaurant with a new "culinary concept" (which seems to be horrible food combinations, trumpeted as Transylvanian-Caribbean-fusion) and turns him down. (Ladderback knows that Loup Garu means werewolf; Andy does not.) But Andy ends up in a big story anyhow, when one of the country's most notable food critics drops dead at her table.

Street Hungry: A Mystery (N.S. "Shep" Ladderback and Andrea Cosicki Mysteries)

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Neville Shepherd Ladderback, the Philadelphia Press's "old, dusty" obituary writer, is researching accountant Paul Small, a city legend in all things dealing with money, who was beaten to death with his own cane. Finding it hard to get a straight story, Ladderback is surprised when Andrea "Andy" Cosicki, the voice behind the "Mr. Action" question-and-answer column, provides him with a key lead. But as each reporter searches for the "nut," or defining element, in their stories, they find that this exchange is just the beginning in a series of startling discoveries.News of Paul Small's death brings back Andy's best friend, Lucia; her mother had been involved with the dead man. The young women's reunion is interrupted by a violent confrontation with members of an Asian gang at a restaurant owned by Angelo Delise, the father of Lucia's friend Cece, who was raped and murdered years ago in the Asian immigrant sector of the city. The gang members were trying to get Delise's safe but failed, overpowered by Lucia's skill in the martial arts. Andy can see how Cece's death still haunts Lucia and she vows to find out the true story.Ladderback's and Andy's investigations keep leading them back to the Pickle Factory, which used to be a warehouse crowded with illegal Asian immigrants but was later developed into luxury lofts by Small's nonprofit veterans organization. Did Small make promises he couldn't keep?Community tension rides high in this third mystery from Bill Kent, an author who is well acquainted with the vibrant characters who live, and die, in gritty South Philly.

Street Fighter: A Mystery

United States

When Andy Cosicki is summoned to the boss's office to describe the murder she discovered, she finds a police lieutenant and Michael McSloan, the paper's lawyer, waiting to hear her story. It requires some effort to not be distracted by McSloan's good looks, even though the scene was unforgettable--attorney Charles Muckler had been trapped in his car while a truckload of wet sand was pumped into it. Good looks are not always matched with good character, however, and it doesn't take Andy long to see beyond McSloan's gorgeous profile. She isn't all that surprised when his body is found at the foot of his high-rise apartment building. He definitely didn't jump; the only question is, which of his many enemies was the one to do the pushing? In trying to put two and two together, Andy gets caught up with her concern for McSloan's disabled young son and for another boy, who wrote to her "Mr. Action" column for help. It takes knowledgeable obituary writer Shep Ladderback to point her down the right path. The oddly matched but delightful pair is just the team to track down a killer with a serious distaste for lawyers. In his fourth "Street" mystery, Bill Kent couples his knowledge as a journalist with the skills of a top-notch writer to build a world and a story that captivates the reader.

Street Legal: A Mystery

Under the Boardwalk

For Atlantic City vice-squad cop Louis Monroe, the everyday hustlers and criminals pale beside the manipulative wife of a big-time lawyer who schemes to make the entire town her own

Arbor House Pub. Co

For Atlantic City vice-squad cop Louis Monroe, the everyday hustlers and criminals pale beside the manipulative wife of a big-time lawyer who schemes to make the entire town her own

Pinnacle Books

Atlantic City: America's Favorite Playground

Ruffolo, Robert R., Jr.

Dobbins, Lauralee

Parks, Lori (editor)

Heritage Media Corporation

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

Books by Kent, Bill

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

Street Money: A Mystery

Street Hungry: A Mystery (N.S. "Shep" Ladderback and Andrea Cosicki Mysteries)

Street Fighter: A Mystery

Street Legal: A Mystery

Under the Boardwalk

Under the Boardwalk

Atlantic City: America's Favorite Playground