MLZ
ALLi Author Member
Location: United States Minor Outlying Islands
Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Western
Michael Zimmer is the author of 23 novels. His work has been praised by Library Journal, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, the Historical Novel Society, and others. City of Rocks (Five Star, 2012) was chosen by Booklist as one of the top ten Western novels of 2012. The Poacher’s Daughter (Five Star, 2014) received a starred Booklist review, and was selected winner of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum’s prestigious Western Heritage Wrangler Award for Outstanding Western Novel (2015); both were finalists for the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, and his short story, The Medicine Robe, won the Spur Award in 2019. Among his Westerns is the seven-volume American Legends Collection series. In addition to Westerns, Zimmer also writes Mysteries, including the Two-Bit Street Mystery series featuring 1940s private eye Lafayette “Lafe” Doyle. Zimmer resides in Utah with his wife Vanessa and their two dogs.
MLZ's books
Genres: Mystery
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Age Groups: 18+
Private detective Layfette “Lafe” Doyle wasn’t prepared for the cesspool of crime and corruption he was about to step into when he was hired to investigate the disappearance of a local prostitute. It’s 1945, and 25st Street—aka Two-Bit Street—is the center of Ogden, Utah’s red light district. The drug dens, pool halls, bars, and brothels are major attractions to war-weary soldiers heading home after the fall of the axis powers in WWII. Lafe’s search for the missing woman leads him deeper into the city’s underbelly, even as the bodies of murdered and mutilated women—all of them prostitutes—begin turning up in the alleys and backlots along Two-Bit Street. He’s convinced there’s a connection between the killings and his missing person’s investigation, but the cops aren’t interested in listening to his theories. They arrest a man—Titus, a lifelong friend of Lafe’s—on flimsy evidence and begin to build their case. Lafe is certain...
Genres: Mystery
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Age Groups: 18+
Private investigator Lafayette Doyle has worked some tough cases over the years, but this one is striking closer to home than most. Lafe is a good detective, and an honest man. But he has a dark past, ties to a mob boss named Donnie Moon, and a debt he needs to repay. That debt comes due when local gangsters start turning up dead in unusual circumstances. It seems someone is out to settle some old scores, and the victims are former criminals who share connection with Moon, and to a crime committed more than a decade before. A crime Lafe himself was involved in. Moon wants Lafe to find out who is doing the killing, and he wants it done quietly, without police involvement. But the more he digs, the deeper, more complex, and deadly the case becomes. It takes an even more alarming turn when Lafe discovers he’s next...
Genres: Mystery
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Age Groups: 18+
Private investigator Lafayette Dole isn’t expecting company when a terrified, middle-aged accountant named Simon Tully—a family man with more information on the mob than is good for anyone’s health—bursts through the door to his Two-Bit Street office. With a pair of killers just minutes behind him, Tully begs Lafe to help him escape. He needs to reach the FBI offices in Salt Lake City, thirty-five miles to the south. But first, he needs to survive the next few minutes. Lafe leads Tully through a rooftop flight, a reckless car chase, and a desperate ride aboard a freight train, before the two finally slip free of pursuit. But that’s only the beginning for Lafe. The mob has too many men looking for Tully, and they want Lafe, too—something about “tying up loose ends.” And suddenly, thirty-five miles seems like a trip to the moon.