NEW CASE. NEW CLIENT. SAME HANGOVER.It starts out as a simple maritime stalking case, which Banyon flat-out refuses. The would-be client is the god of the sea, see, and Crag Banyon is a strict reformed agnostic: while he believes in the existence of gods, he prefers it if they don't pester him during happy hour.Unfortunately, something big is stirring offshore, the coast is being flooded, and despite his best efforts to stay planted on his favorite barstool, Banyon finds himself swept up in a case of Olympian intrigue, dirty deals and fresh fish. Soon he's up to his pretty little neck in trouble, paddling for his life, taking on water, and in the end it's either sink or swim.Does it all come out in the wash? Just ask his secretary:"CRAG BANYON? THAT JERK'S A BUM, AND THAT'S THE GODS' HONEST TRUTH."!

CRAG BANYON. HE'S JUST SUPER.When Minus, the city's newly minted superhero, shows up at Banyon Investigations looking for help tracking down his archenemy, Banyon's first instinct is to tell his prospective client to take a flying leap. Supervillains are notoriously unforgiving types, and so when it comes to dealing with them Banyon has a firm business policy that consists of three pillars: truth, justice and running away. Not necessarily in that order.But the hero is a sad sack, and the office elf wants Banyon to take the case, and none of the really good bars in town are open, and so, caught in a weak moment, Banyon relents. Big mistake. Soon our plucky P.I. is caught up in the crazy chaos that comes hand-in-glove with the larger than life superhero biz. If he's lucky enough to survive the thrilling flights, dizzying heights, Spandex tights, bare-knuckled fights, and a doozy of a demented ex-girlfriend, Crag Banyon might live just long enough to make it to his own funeral.BANYON...

CRAG BANYON: WHEN THE MOON IS HIGH, SO IS HEFind a missing book. What could be easier? Not so easy when the book is the sacred Gypsy bible and the P.I. hired to track it down is Crag Banyon, for whom "luck" is a four-letter word spelled B-A-D.The case turns out to be a real page turner, with more thrills, chills and spills than a midnight trip to the men's room of Banyon's favorite watering hole. And closing time has never been so deadly, now that a mysterious four-legged figure has set its sights on one particular hapless investigator whose knack for figuring out plot twists and polishing off cocktails has gotten him banned from every church book club in the tri-city area.Why are the latest murderous rampages to terrorize the town exquisitely timed to fall between the rising and setting of the moon, and what does it all have to do with a leggy Gypsy dame, a gaggle of Gypsy hags, their AWOL Gypsy king, and the musty misplaced manuscript that holds all their tribe's deepest,...

BANYON INVESTIGATIONS, INC. CASES CRACKED. REASONABLE RATES.When a desperate leprechaun needs to locate his lost pot of gold, there's only one P.I. in town dogged and sober enough to take the case. Unfortunately, his first choice is in Bimini dodging an IRS audit, so he calls on Crag Banyon instead.That's just the start of a string of increasingly lousy luck that hounds Banyon from one emerald end of his latest crummy job to the other, where it turns out that a trip over the rainbow isn't the fun-and-booze-filled romp that all the brochures claim. Banyon finds that the whole leprechaun world is upside-down, while at the same time our own world is suffering through a mealtime catastrophe that's threatening side dishes from here to Thanksgiving and beyond.Toss in a femme fatale more fatale than usual, along with a sexy dame reporter who's so untrustworthy even her curves are crooked, and Banyon finds that he's up to his pretty little...

RECIPE FOR DISASTER!Take one psycho beauty hell-bent on revolution.Add millions in illicit cash.Stir in one counterculture army.Simmer in a political pressure cooker until it explodes into America's streets.A devastating attack in the heartland leaves a stunned nation reeling. Claiming credit for the unprovoked strike is a new radical group called the People's Brigade. Even as bodies are being pulled from the rubble, this heretofore unknown group loses no time launching assault after assault in cities across the country.America's intelligence agencies are flying blind and can only stand helpless as the violence escalates...until a desperate MIC tosses Patrick "Podge" Becket and Dr. Thaddeus Wainwright into the fray. The two men quickly uncover a scheme that links the People's Brigade to underground radical groups in every state in the union, all answerable to a lovely young sociopath called Daisy.The gal's got looks, brains, money and an army of men willing to die for a cause.Our...

RED IS THE NEW GOLDThere's more than meets the eye when inmates riot in a West Coast maximum security prison. What could transform men into wild beasts? Turns out the dead prisoners are guinea pigs in a larger scheme, and Washington sends in the only two men who can deal with the sinister plot.Patrick "Podge" Becket and Dr. Thaddeus Wainwright trace a trail of bodies to a crazy California cult whose demented leader welcomes all who seek truth. But enlightenment costs, mainly in the form of cold, hard cash into the bank account of failed writer and self-proclaimed High Star Admiral R. Gunn Hallifax.Hallifax's tall tales of out-of-this-world enemies have the gullible lining up in droves to join his church, and his disciples become an earthly army for their leader's terrestrial aims. There's nothing otherworldly about murder and mayhem. It's up to the Red Menace and Dr. Wainwright to discover just what the cult has to do with the head...

"HELLO. YOU HAVE REACHED BANYON INVESTIGATIONS. MAYBE."Amnesia is to private investigators what chicken pox is to kids: sooner or later they all come down with it.Crag Banyon's bout of pesky P.I. amnesia comes during what may or may not be his biggest case ever. Unfortunately, he can't remember the case, he can't remember his client, he can't remember where he parked his car, and most of all he can't remember why he joined a profession that gets you shot at, run over, and repeatedly whacked on the head and left for dead.Banyon is in the fight of his life and not even his trusty office elf knows with whom or why. As the plucky P.I. begins to blindly unravel knots, he busts open a scheme bigger than he could have possibly imagined, and it all ties in with a sexy lady doctor, a nasty news vendor, a passel of time-traveling cowboys and an exceedingly polite cast of thousands.If Banyon remembers enough to survive to the end, he's going to need a few dozen good, stiff drinks to...

A SAFE BET?Official Washington is in an uproar when late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's top secret safe is found and then promptly goes missing. Rumor has it that Hoover was infamous for collecting files on all the nation's powerful movers and shakers, so there's no telling what damning information exists within the high-tech vault.There's usually only one man MIC calls for dire situations like this, but this time it's not the Red Menace. It seems Dr. Thaddeus Wainwright designed the safe years before so that only Hoover could open it. Flash-forward to a post-Hoover world where the billion dollar blackmail question becomes: can whoever stole the safe spring the lock? When Wainwright says it's a very definite maybe the whole world turns upside-down.The race is on for the big black box that holds America's future, and the Red Menace and Dr. Wainwright must outrun, outfight and outfox the Mob, a doomsaying environmentalist,...

WHO IS THE RED MENACE?Throughout the 1950s this was the number one question from Moscow to Beijing and in every communist palace and malaria-ridden backwater in between. The mysterious masked figure was a shadow and a whisper. For the Kremlin and its fellow travelers he was a damnable monkey wrench tossed into the gears of the not-so-glorious worldwide revolution. Wherever Reds schemed, the Menace was there to set things right. And then, just like that, 1960 came and the whisper grew silent.Twelve years later, Podge Becket, computer tycoon and security expert, thinks he's hung up his mask and cape for good. He escaped the spy game while still a young man, and none but a select few know about his long-dead secret identity. But into his restless retirement steps a ghost from his past, a bitter Russian colonel with nothing to lose and the means to wreak worldwide destruction.Aided by his partner, brilliant inventor and physician Dr. Thaddeus Wainwright,...

BANYON'S BACK WITH ONE HECK OF A CASE!For a savvy private investigator like Crag Banyon, tackling cases that are too hot to handle comes with the territory. But even a plucky P.I. with an occasionally unsavory client roster has his limits. So when a demon shows up at the front door of Banyon Investigations with a pile of cash and a plea for help, Banyon thinks it could be time to cool things down. Unfortunately, temptation strikes at the precise moment the rent is overdue, and the landlord — not to mention the power and phone companies and Banyon's top fifty favorite liquor stores — don't take IOUs. Short on cash, he makes a deal with the devil.Someone's gone over the wall and escaped from Hell, and the demon prison guards need somebody on the outside to track down their misplaced soul. Simple missing persons case, right? Except nothing's ever simple for Crag Banyon, P.I. When he's not being assaulted, mauled, arrested,...

"Hello, you've reached Banyon Investigations...."Crag Banyon is just your run-of-the-mill P.I. He's got a secretary who loves to hate and hates to love him. His worst enemy in the world is on the local force and relishes the thought of seeing Banyon behind bars. And he's got a knack for attracting all the crazies to his small downtown office above the fish market. So when an elf shows up on a stolen reindeer and hints of foul play at the North Pole, Banyon takes the whole thing in stride, refuses to take the case, and heads off to his favorite saloon. But when the elf turns up dead the next morning, the cops make their least favorite private eye the fall guy.A hunted man, Banyon lams it to the Arctic Circle to clear his name. He quickly finds that Santa's workshop is a lot more dangerous than even a plucky P.I. with a ready quip and a five-alarm hangover can handle. Between fighting for his life and fending off the advances of a hot-to-trot Mrs. Claus, Banyon uncovers a conspiracy...

HOLD THE PICKLE, HOLD THE HOMICIDE!Something fishy is going on at famous Franklin Morrow's Restaurants. Why is the most successful chain of eateries in the U.S. suddenly catering to the murder and mayhem crowd, and who exactly is the mysterious man in the ten gallon hat with an all-you-can eat appetite for death and destruction?All signs point to something big and bad being served up soon, but the CIA, FBI and Pentagon are all out to lunch, leaving only one of America's intelligence agencies to chew around the edges of a vast and horrifying terror plot.When one body too many surfaces, MIC Director Simon Kirk has finally had a bellyful of bad bistro news and decides that someone is in need of some just desserts. And, of course, who else but Podge Becket and the brilliant Dr. Thaddeus Wainwright would be dispatched to act as the ultimate antacid?As always, how does America spell relief? R-E-D M-E-N-A-C-E!