Gerald Petievich Books In Order

Publication Order of Charles Carr Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Gerald Petievich
Gerald Petievich belongs to that small group of writers that came to crime fiction from careers in law enforcement. He’s been an Army counterspy, and from 1970 until 1985, Gerald was a United States Secret Service Special Agent. He uses his real life experiences in order to achieve verisimilitude in his fiction. His books are known to come as close as any in the thriller and mystery genres to a genuine realism.

His novels “Boiling Point”, “To Live and Die in LA”, and “The Sentinel” have all been adapted for the screen. Petievich co-wrote the screenplays for all three films.

He grew up in a police family. His brother and dad were both members of the Los Angeles Police Department. He attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey and later served in Germany as a US Army Counterintelligence Special Agent. As Chief of the Counterespionage Section, Field Office Nuremberg, he got commendations for his work during the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

In 1970 he joined the United States Secret Service where as a Special Agent he spent fifteen years engaged in duties relating to the protection of the President and the enforcement of Federal counterfeiting laws. It was during a long term Secret Service assignment in Paris, France that he discovered the works of John le Carre, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo, and Graham Greene, and he decided to become a writer. Later, as he served in Los Angeles as the US Secret Service representative to the Department of Justice Organized Crime Strike Force, his schedule consisted of waking up at 4 AM to write before he went to his government office.

He left the office to pursue writing full time in 1985. “Money Men”, Gerald’s first novel, was based on a real LA case in which an undercover cop got murdered. This novel and the rest of his other police procedurals belong to the school of inverted detection; which means that the criminals are known to the reader from the start, and the suspense lies in how they’ll be found out and brought to justice. Even though some of the detection is of the scientific or deductive sorts, much of it, like in real life, involves use of informants and legwork.

“Shakedown” was based on this idea that came to him during his time as a US Secret Service agent working on a long term undercover operation involving the theft of some government bonds. He wound up in Hollywood getting introduced to one of the most fascinating men he’s ever met: this professional blackmailer that spent years impersonating cops so he could extort movie stars. After returning back home Gerald sat up half the night making notes on what that man had told him.

He lives in Los Angeles with Pam, his wife and a gourmet cook that trained at Paris’ Cordon Bleu Cooking School. They have a daughter named Emma.

“Money Men” is the first novel in the “Charles Carr” series and was released in 1983. Charles Carr is a hardboiled and relentless Treasury Agent with a pretty grim mission. One young agent gets violently gunned down during this undercover operation, and it is Carr’s job to hunt the counterfeiter down that pulled the trigger.

From the seamy sunset Strip to Chinatown’s shadowy underworld, from this daring plot to steal some counterfeit money from counterfeiters themselves, to facing this brutal blood drenched confrontations, Carr is going to stop at nothing in order to crack the depraved scheme which claimed his friend’s life.

“One Shot Deal” is the second novel in the “Charles Carr” series and was released in 1983. Carr rips the lid off of this intricate scheme in order to print ten million in US Treasury notes on stolen government security paper, which is a scam that starts in the inner sanctum of the US Mint and ends in a pool of blood under the smoking barrel of Carr’s .357 magnum.

“To Die in Beverly Hills” is the third novel in the “Charles Carr” series and was released in 1983. US Treasury Agents Jack Kelly and Charlie Carr are investigating a counterfeiting ring, and get tipped off by Detective Travis Bailey of the LA police, he’s a cool and ruthless cop with some odd tastes in women and sex, who warns them about this plot to murder their prime witness. Unwittingly, they’re involved in this phony stakeout in which Kelly gets seriously injured.

Deeply suspicious and determined to avenge his partner, Carr puts his career and life both on the line so that he can build a case against Bailey, and he sets out in order to prove that he’s the mastermind behind this series of robberies from the wealthy residents in the area.

Carr’s mission pulls him into the depths of moneyed Beverly Hills, and into the underworld of have-nots who are hungry for a piece of the Rolls Royce action.

“To Live and Die in LA” is a stand alone novel that was released in 1984. This is a harrowing story that portrays the dark undesrside of America’s West Coast metropolis.

Two US Treasury agents, both antagonists and partners, get pulled into this matrix of corruption and violence, LA style, a journey through a sunlit hell. By the end, they become experts on the thin line that separates what it takes to live (and die) in LA.

“The Sentinel” is a stand alone novel that was released in 2003. This White House Secret Service agent that specializes in electronic surveillance has just been blown away by some masked gunman. A neo-Nazi group called The Aryan Clan, has taken credit for it.

Secret Service Special Agent Pete Garrison fears that it is much more than just a simple warning shot delivered by some extremists. His first lead is this informant that claims the Aryans have positioned one of their own people inside of the White House.

However it is the second lead which carries the most shattering of implications. It’s a blackmailer that knows about Garrison’s love affair with the First Lady, and has the pictures to prove it. It’s evidence that would frame Garrison with the perfect motive to commit a murder.

Garrison’s last option: infiltrate the President’s most powerful circles of defense, and outguess the murderer’s next move.