Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error (USA 2016)

From the Publisher:
Investigating a corporate crusader, John Marshall Tanner runs headlong into personal tragedy
When corporations misbehave, Roland Nelson brings them to heel. The most powerful consumer advocate in the country, he's ruthless in exposing cover-ups, especially when the safety of the American people is at stake. But the white knight of the American consumer has secrets of his own, and someone is making him pay. Nelson is being blackmailed, and unless his tormenter is stopped, the final payoff will be murder.

Desperate for help, Nelson's wife approaches no-nonsense San Francisco private investigator John Marshall Tanner, who takes time out of his busy schedule of skiptracing and divorce work to look into the businessman's secrets. At first, the job seems routine, but when a brother PI is killed on the job, Tanner realizes there are dark forces swirling around the case.

Grave Error is the 1st book in the John Marshall Tanner Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

"A superior writer." -- The New York Times on Fatal Obsession
"The legitimate heir to the mantle of the late Ross MacDonald." -- Chicago Tribune

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error. A John Marshall Tanner Mystery. MysteriousPress.com / Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781504027335 (February, 2016), eBook, 3.5 MB (ca. 344 p.), $7.99.

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error (UK 2015)

From the Publisher:
The first novel in Stephen Greenleaf's classic series featuring John Marshall Tanner, San Francisco ex-lawyer turned private detective.

When her husband begins acting strangely, the wife of a famous legal crusader hires San Francisco P.I. John Marshall Tanner to find out why. Tanner is convinced the case is a simple matter of blackmail. Certainly a man like Roland Nelson has made his share of powerful enemies in a career devoted to exposing fraud and corruption among the mighty.

But Tanner's investigation soon takes a tragic and personal turn. Suddenly Tanner finds himself on a trail of buried secrets, frustrated passions, and smoldering revenge as he races to stop a killer.

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error. A John Marshall Tanner Mystery. Mulholland Books, ISBN: 9781473624023 (November, 2015), eBook, 576 KB (ca. 272 p.), £8.99.

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error (USA 1992)

From the Publisher:
FATAL RECALL
When her husband begins acting strangely, the wife of a famous consumer advocate hires San Francisco P.I. John Marshall Tanner to find out why. Tanner is convinced the case is a simple matter of blackmail. Certainly a man like Roland Nelson had made his share of powerful enemies in a career devoted to exposing fraud and corruption among the mighty.

Now someone had something on Nelson, but what? By all accounts, the consumer crusader was just what he appeared to be: a knight in shining armor. Tanner's investigation seems to be at a dead end until the case takes a tragic and personal turn. Suddenly Tanner finds himself on a trail of buried secrets, frustrated passions, and smoldering revenge as he races to stop a killer about to recall his next victim.

GRAVE ERROR

"THE LONG-SOUGHT HEIR OF SAM SPADE, MARLOWE AND ARCHER." -- San Francisco Examiner
"MR. GREENLEAF IS A REAL WRITER WITH REAL TALENT." -- The New Yorker

Cover art by Nicholas Rosza

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error. A John Marshall Tanner Mystery. Bantam Crime Line, ISBN: 0553293478 (January, 1992), 259 p., $4.99.

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error (UK 1983)

From the Publisher:
Some things never change. Like the traditional private eye's office. Shabby, barely furnished. Everything a bit ageing and battered. Like the owner of the business.

And there's a reason. Not style, not over-indulgence in old Bogart movies.
Money. Or rather lack of it.
And the clients. Most of them, pretty shabby and life-battered. Mostly, but not always. Just sometimes in comes a bit of class -- with money. Though the better things look, the nastier they usually are underneath. That's not cynicism. Just experience.

It was experience whispered to me that Mrs Jacqueline Nelson's problem with her husband could turn out nasty. And complicated.
Especially when there was an opposition. One with Mob connections and unsubtle methods like shooting private eyes in the head. Add in a beautiful dame and it all began to look too much like one of those old movies.

Except it was for real.

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error. New English Library, ISBN: 0450053997 (July, 1983), 264 p., £1.75 (?).

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error (USA 1982)

From the Publisher:
"PRIVATE-EYE JOHN MARSHALL TANNER FROM SAN FRANCISCO COULD JOIN THE COMPANY OF SPADE, MARLOWE, ARCHER AND OTHER WEST COAST HEROES." -- The New York Times Book Review

GRAVE ERROR
The wife of a leading consumer activist is afraid he may be killed or blackmailed...
Their adopted daughter is stirring up a stew of murder and mayhem searching for her real parents... And John Marshall Tanner, the greatest new fictional detective to come along in years, is trying to figure it all out and find the killer of his oldest friend.

It's a classic San Francisco who's-doing-what-to-whom with enough twists and turns to keep mystery fans up all night!
"MR. GREENLEAF IS A REAL WRITER WITH REAL TALENT!" -- The New Yorker

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error. Ballantine Books, ISBN: 0345301889 (January, 1982), 231 p., $2.50.

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error (UK 1981)

From the Publisher:
For John Marshall Tanner, lawyer turned private investigator, an errant spouse was a job like all the others. A discreet tail, a polaroid or two, a few red faces... and his cheque. But this one was different. Mrs Nelson wanted no publicity. She suspects her husband of infidelity, but as he's the country's leading consumer advocate, it's kid-gloves time. OK, Tanner could keep his mouth shut, so why was someone so keen on it staying that way - permanently?

No, this wasn't the usual straying husband routine. This was organised crime, an unsolved murder decades old, and an adopted daughter in search of her parents. As the skeletons in the Nelson family closet rattle, Tanner soon realises he'd underestimated the case - an error that could prove very grave indeed.

"Mr Greenleaf does have the instincts of a good storyteller... John Marshall Tanner from San Francisco could join the company of Spade, Marlowe, Archer and other West Coast heroes." -- New York Times
"... a further twist and polish to the classic California private-eye novel. Mr Greenleaf is a real writer with real talent." -- New Yorker

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error. London: New English Library, 1981, ISBN: 0450047318, 264 p., £5.95.

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error (USA 1979)

From the Publisher:
Mrs. Nelson thinks her husband may be having an illicit affair -- a run-of-the-mill situation as far as John Marshall Tanner, one-time lawyer turned investigator, is concerned. Except that the beautiful Mrs. Nelson doesn't want her husband's infidelity documented. The facts must be covered up to protect him from scandal and blackmail; his national reputation as a leading consumer advocate must remain untarnished.

Not a simple task, as things turn out. An unsolved murder decades old, an adopted daughter's search for her natural parents, and the intervention of organized criminals all complicate John Marshall Tanner's investigation into the surprising truths behind one man's adulterous dalliance with fate.

With the first sentences of this book, you will know you are in the hands of a great Chandler fan and detective-story craftsman. One reads Grave Error with nostalgia as well as with appreciation for the pleasure Stephen Greenleaf gives the mystery buffs who miss the master.

STEPHEN GREENLEAF lives in Iowa with his wife and son. He is currently enrolled in the University of Iowa's Program in Creative Writing. Mr. Greenleaf graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and has a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He is thirty-seven.

Jacket illustration by William Schmidt

Stephen Greenleaf: Grave Error. A Novel. The Dial Press, ISBN: 0385270585 (May, 1979), 264 p., $8.95.