Jack Getze

Making Hearts

Austin Carr is a homeless stockbroker. Sort of. He's a salesman. Living on 100% commission during a recession and with child support payments can lead to getting kicked out of your apartment, having your car repossessed and living in a camper. Not even a real camper. A beat up old pickup with one of those camper toppers on it. Which he parks in the lot at Luis's Mexican Restaurant where he also takes advantage of the shower in the employee dressing room. His biggest client has health issues, the client's wife is coming on to him, another client is super pissed about an investment and wants to get revenge, and his supervisor is ready to take him down by any means necessary. Determined to make enough money to meet the child support payments and get to see his kids again, Austin gets mixed up with a redhead which leads to illegal bond and money transfers and in the course of less than two weeks is run down by a car, beat up, his manager tries to shoot him, is buried in sand at the water's edge with the tide coming in, then he's kidnapped and finally becomes the victim of attempted murder by Bluefin (yes, the fish). And when he sneaks in to watch his daughter's swim meets, Austin wears nothing but a speedo.

Big Numbers

A scruffy stockbroker returns to tangle with mobsters, women and his own big mouth. The good news, as the story opens, is that the hero is in the company of a gorgeous naked lady. The bad news is that she's pointing a shotgun at him. It's a typical predicament for Austin Carr, a semi-shady New Jersey financial professional temporarily in charge of Shore Securities while his boss is on vacation. But market fluctuations are the least of Carr's worries. He's being extorted into opening a money-laundering account for local crime boss Bluefish; an auditor who was investigating his company has turned up murdered; a fetching state police captain figures he's the key to her organized-crime probe; and his boss's mother has been picked up for fixing her church bingo game. Carr is continually getting into trouble over his weakness for breasts, his penchant for self-incriminating statements and his vestigial moral sensibility, which, like an appendix, makes itself felt at inconvenient times. On the plus side, he's got his noble Mexican buddy Luis, a boyish grin for placating angry females, an occasional glimmer of perceptiveness and a stock salesman's gift for closing the deal, even with people who are preparing to throw his weighted body into the ocean.

Big Money

When a top-secret weapon goes missing on Colonel Maggie Black’s watch, her honor and her career are on the line. There were airmen who said the Air Force’s best female combat pilot would never be the same after losing her arm in Iraq, but state-of-the-art prosthetics have made Maggie better than new, and she’s not about to lose what she battled so hard to regain. But finding her experimental missile won’t be easy—thanks to the revenge-fueled ambitions of Asdrubal Torres, whose hallucinatory encounter with the Great Spirit challenges him to refill Lake Cahuilla, the ancient inland sea that once covered much of Southern California. To fulfill his blessed mission, Torres needs wizardry and weaponry, and the Great Spirit provides both: Magic, in the form of a celebrated shaman’s basket returned to the tribal museum by San Diego reporter Jordan Scott; Might, in the form of Maggie Black’s top-secret weapon that falls from the sky. From that moment, it’s a race against time for Maggie and Jordan, who together must stop Torres from destroying Hoover Dam—and turning the Colorado River into a tsunami that would kill hundreds of thousands and wipe out the Southwest’s water supply. In the final showdown, it’s Maggie who must disarm the stolen missile’s trigger—one-handed or not—and save the day.

The Black Kachina

Wall Street’s miasmal garbage washes up on the Jersey Shore when a small time broker falls in love: Is he attracted to the beautiful lady — or her brother’s inside information? Held spellbound by a steamy, auburn-haired woman with a dubious past and a get-rich-quick, insider trading scheme, Austin Carr knocks down a beehive of bad-acting Bonacellis, including the ill-tempered “Mr. Vic” Bonacelli, who wants his redhead back, and local mob lieutenant Angelina “Mama Bones” Bonacelli, architect of a strange and excruciating death trap for the fast-talking stockbroker she calls smarty pants. To survive, Austin must unravel threads of jealousy, revenge and new affections, discover the fate of a pseudo ruby called the Big Mojo and slam the lid on a pending United States of America vs. Austin Carr insider trading case. Can Austin and his Jersey Shore mouthpiece possibly out maneuver the savvy U.S. District Attorney from Manhattan? Will anything matter for Austin ever again if Mama Bones flips that switch? Praise for BIG MOJO … “Darkly comic and always entertaining — with an outrageous cast of characters including a scheming grandmother and a mysterious redhead. Our engaging hero, fueled by honor and passion, does the best he can in a world where the bad guys seem determined to do him in. Gordon Gekko meets Janet Evanovich in this wry and winning caper — Jack Getze does it again!” — Hank Phillippi Ryan, Agatha, Anthony and Mary Higgins Clark Award winning author of Truth Be Told “If Jack Getze’s Austin Carr novels aren’t on your must-read list, you don’t know what you’re missing. Austin Carr’s that buddy your wife doesn’t like you to hang out with. Fast-talking, wisecracking, and hard-living, he’s the type of guy who swears he’s only ever looking for a good time, and yet every night out with him seems to end in a fight. But you can’t deny he’s got heart — and BIG MOJO is Carr’s most epic adventure yet. It’s got frame-ups. Insider trading. Stolen jewels. Double-crosses. Triple-crosses. Love potions. Gunplay. And enough outsized characters it could only take place in the great state of New Jersey. So pick it up. Give it a read. But maybe tell the missus you’re hanging out with someone else.” — Chris F. Holm, author of the Collector Series “There’s no way you can lose with an Austin Carr novel with a gorgeous redhead, a character with the moniker of “Mama Bones”, a double-crossing business partner, more bad guys than can be seen in one place outside of the White House, and Austin’s smart mouth that surely he learned by reading lots of Robert B. Parker’s character Spenser … A truly rollicking, fun, action-filled read with more twists than a fevered revival of Hula Hoop fanatics at a Jersey Shore ballroom … And then, there’s that redhead. Always that redhead … ” — Les Edgerton, author of The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping and others “The irrepressible Austin Carr is back, and he’s sly and sardonic as ever. Jack Getze’s BIG MOJO is a rollercoaster ride you don’t want to miss!” — Hilary Davidson, Anthony Award Winning Author of Blood Always Tells

Jack Getze

About

Books

Join the club