Students of Pain: From the Case Files of Max Christian, Pi Book 3

On what starts out as just another routine day at the office, Max Christian, PI, receives a life-changing phone call. On the line is his old adversary, Carlo (Charlie Beak) Paolucci, don of the last Cosa Nostra family in New York. The Beak’s hoods have snatched Max’s son, Jay, a Penn freshman, and he wants twenty-five million dollars for his safe return. The money is the least of Max’s worries. His wife is heiress to a $250 million family fortune. But the former NYPD homicide cop is brutally aware that kidnapping victims almost never come home alive. Even worse, the Beak is a notorious sadist and self-named student of pain who enjoys watching his victims suffer. After Max attempts face-to-face diplomacy with no luck, he fantasizes an armed rescue operation. Unfortunately he has no idea where Jay is being held. It’s not until he hooks up with a mysterious Florida PI known as the Closer that a desperate strategy finally comes together. But when good guys without scruples meet bad guys with guns, there will be blood. In this thrilling tale, a New York PI is cast in the middle of a complex and dangerous investigation after his son is kidnapped by a mob boss.