Rob Leininger books in order

Trouble. The moment Frank Limosin sees gorgeous eighteen-year-old Suki Flood sitting on the rear deck of the Trans Am in the hot empty desert, he feels trouble in the air. The Trans Am has a flat tire. They're over ten miles from the nearest highway. And Suki, dressed in short shorts and a tiny halter top, doesn't know how to change a tire. 

Against Suki's will, Frank gives her a lesson in tire changing, then he thinks that's it, he'll never see her again. How wrong can one man be? Because Suki turns out to be fifty times more trouble than Frank ever dreamed possible. He saved her once. Now he has to save her again and again and again . . .

Returning home to Wyoming from college back east with a civil engineering degree, Andy Stillman finds that his father has been murdered and his ranch, the Bar-O, is under siege by a rival ranch, the Circle-K. 

Unwilling to risk the lives of his hired hands and family to fight the much larger ranch, Andy protects them by firing his ranch hands and sending his young brother and sister to Cheyenne, two hundred miles away. Now a lone, almost invisible target, Andy fights the Circle-K and its hired guns in a stealthy, violent guerilla war, using his recently-acquired engineering skills.

1969: Nixon is president.

Demonstrations against the Vietnam War rock America. Hippies and flower power are in. 7,000 miles away, aboard the heavy cruiser, USS Saint Paul, CA-73, Charlie Baggs must make a decision: stay in the Navy, or get out. 

As Baggs struggles to make a decision, the "Fighting Saint" pulls into Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines. Across a narrow river from the base lies the town of Olongapo, a raucous "liberty town" teeming with bargirls, pickpockets, shoe shine boys, thieves, "mama-sans," and drug pushers. 

Baggs and other sailors in "OE Division" aboard ship swarm into Olongapo to blow off steam in perhaps the single most infamous place ever created by the collision of sailors, bargirls, beer, and money. Baggs has but five days to decide what his future will be. 

Will the USS Saint Paul head back to the war zone with him, or without him? And will the next few days he spends in Olongapo's silken hands affect that decision?

Never get between greedy men and eight billion dollars worth of anything---words to live by, as geophysicist Steven Bell is finding out. In Eastern Oregon, 90,000 cubic feet of mantle-hot gas is roaring out of the Devil's Pore fumarole every second. 

To Bell, this is just a "leak," a pinhole, relatively speaking. But what is leaking? Where is all that gas coming from? And why is 700 square miles of land subsiding, inch by inch, year by year? The fumarole, it turns out, is just the visible tip of an iceberg. A disaster of monstrous proportions is brewing. Bell wants the fumarole plugged in order to study the problem, but the hot gas is carrying with it a rare-earth element worth billions, an element with military applications. 

The U.S. government wants Bell to shut up and go away; Drew Gannon wants Bell dead; 14-year-old Lissa Bell just wants to spend the summer with her dad; and gorgeous ex-model Kate is caught in the middle, forced into a disturbing agenda of her own. 

Forces of nature, government, greed, and love collide with the potential for an explosion that could make a major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault look like a whisper in the wind.

Andy Stillman went off to college in 1871. He returned in 1875 with a civil engineering degree. Upon arriving in Willow Creek, Wyoming, he finds that his father has been murdered by hired guns of a rival rancher, but that can't be proven in a court of law. He's been away for four years. People in town don't know who he's become. 

To them, he's more city dude now than rancher. He's a tenderfoot. He has "book learnin'." He's almost an outsider. And his father's ranch--Andy's ranch now--is under attack. A drought is causing Will O'Meara's Circle-K ranch to lose cattle, and he wants Stillman's water: Little Muddy Creek. 

How does a tenderfoot with eight cowhands and a young brother and sister, fight a violent rancher with twenty men, six recently-hired rough men, and three murdering gunslingers? Answer: he sends his family and all his cowhands away, then goes it alone.

Elected on a wave of hope, re-elected on a wave of sheer stupidity, he is the most-important, most-protected man on the planet. He is the Messiah, come to lower sea levels and save the planet, to make nice with terrorists, to take the blame for nothing, to play a lot of golf. He is lawless. His unconstitutional executive orders go unchallenged by a wussified, do-nothing congress.

At the absolute apex of power and privilege, he is unique among Earth's billions. He is the "Prez." He is the Chosen One. He is that one remarkable, transcendent, gold-plated, silver-tongued man. He and the First Lady live within the womb of Secret Service protection. Nothing can harm them, nothing can get through the cordon of highly-trained agents that surround them. Until . . . Someone does.

He's old. He's not even five feet tall. Who is this little old man? How is he able to slip through all the White House defenses, its closed-circuit TV systems and its patrolling agents? What does he want? Why can no one catch him, control him, stop him? And why have three-quarters of the Secret Service agents assigned to the White House vanished? Where did they go? Suddenly something is wrong in the White House. Something is very, VERY wrong.

NB: This book was previously titled "No shortage of weasels" and "A Confederacy of Snakes".

The sunspot was huge. Nothing like it had ever been seen before---a twenty-billion square mile blot on the surface of the sun, and growing. Dr. Morris Tyler at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff has a theory that might explain what's happening, and the news isn't good. Which is why he's under surveillance after having been told to keep his theory to himself. 

Keeping his theory under wraps isn't easy, not when a gorgeous reporter for Parsec magazine, Gail Dionne, has him in her sights, out to get a story. Tyler's well-ordered world spins out of control when all these forces converge on him, and the world begins to grow colder as the sun . . . goes . . . out.

While attempting to psychically locate a submarine in a top-secret defense facility in Maryland, a well-known psychic dies an inexplicable death; at the same moment, three thousand miles away, the commander of the submarine she was trying to detect dies in the same impossible way. 

Hours later, a beautiful catatonic girl, Angel, in a Rhode Island mental hospital escapes. And near San Francisco, Josh Anders, age 13, with an IQ of 170, is at the center of this storm. He has the power of Maxwell's Demon, a concept proposed by James Clerk Maxwell in 1871. On the run with Angel, Josh is hunted by the FBI, the CIA, and Russian commandos. 

Due to his ability to control the probabilistic dance of atoms and molecules, Josh is thought by the U.S. and the Russian military to be the most dangerous person on the planet. But all Josh wants is to have his family back and his life to return to normal, unaware that what he and Angel are doing as they run from the authorities is about to start World War Three.

This looks like a kid's story, but it was written for adults. And it's funny. Lifelong readers in their sixties and beyond have laughed out loud and often at this. It contains references that only adults will get, but it is suitable for children ten and older who will get most of the adventure in the story. 

Nicholas Phree, living in an old mansion with seven aunts and one uncle, finds a genie named Gene and a flying carpet named Jules in his attic. These two are main characters in the story and have been together for over a thousand years, so they know each other inside and out. Gene has narcolepsy and falls asleep at inopportune times, and Jules has a top speed of about Mach 1.6 so hopping around the world is no problem. There is a new girlfriend, Hannah, and a town bully, Burgess Mumm. 

What would any of us have given to have had a genie to take care of the Burgess Mumms in our lives? And then there are the shore patrol guys on Wake Island who think they ought to take Nick and Hannah in for trespassing, and the out of control air conditioner in New Delhi that fills the hotel room with frost, and trolls guarding the Emerald of Bool, and . . . you get the picture, except . . . this one was written for adults who still remember the good old stories that really took you away.

Gorgeous ex-showgirl Gabrielle Johns, 29, makes a good living as a backroom poker in Reno, Nevada. "Good-old-boys" check out her blond hair and Playmate figure and think she'll be easy picking. Wrong. She has a gift for poker. But having trained years ago as a PI at her father-in-law's investigative firm, people she knows come to her for help. She refers them to her father-in-law, but under the delusion that Gabbi still works for him, Bert puts the cases back on Gabbi's shoulders. 

On a cold day in January, Ashley Dinsmore, the young wife of a federal judge, asks Gabbi for help. She's being stalked by a man who says he loves her. He has compromising pictures of them “together.” For Ashley, it's a nightmare, one she desperately wants to escape. She hopes Gabbi will be able to get him to stop, and get the pictures, without her husband finding out. As usual, Bert dumps the case on Gabbi's shoulders, putting her squarely in the jaws of a meat-grinder that could cost her her life.

IRS agent, feared and despised—a gumshoe for only four hours—finds Reno’s missing mayor’s head.

For nine long days, the mayor and district attorney of Reno, Nevada, have been missing. Vanished without a trace. Their vehicles were found parked side-by-side at Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

Did they fly somewhere together? They aren’t on any flight manifest. Did the two of them take off with a big pile of the city’s money? If so, the city accountants can’t find it. Were they murdered? There’s no sign of foul play. Their disappearances have finally made national news.

Enter Mortimer Angel, who’d just quit a thankless job as an IRS agent. Mort is Reno’s newest gumshoe, a private-eye-in-training at his nephew’s detective agency. Just four hours into his new career, Mort finds the mayor—make that, the mayor’s head—in the trunk of Mort’s ex-wife’s Mercedes.

The news-hungry media speculates: Did Mort kill the mayor? Did Mort’s ex? As events begin to spin out of control, Mort realizes things have been out of control since the night before he started his new career, the night he found the unknown naked blonde in his bed.

A hooker who’s not a hooker—a hand without a body—what’s next for Mort?

Ex-IRS agent turned gumshoe-in-training, Mortimer Angel, is approached by a beautiful hooker, Holiday, in a casino bar in Reno.

Mort first met Holiday two months ago, but now learns that she’s not really a hooker. She’s a college engineering student, searching for her younger sister, Allie, who disappeared three months ago.

Having seen Mort in the news, Holiday knows he’s a PI who finds missing persons. While in the bar with Mort, Holiday gets an unexpected phone call from Allie who says she’s in Gerlach, a small town in Nevada.

The call is cut off. Holiday hires Mort on the spot, dragging him off to Gerlach. On the way out of town, Mort picks up a FedEx disturbing package.

When Mort finds a connection between Allie and US Senator Harry “Liar” Reinhart, a presidential candidate who vanished without a trace three days ago, things quickly turn deadly—very deadly.

Mortimer Angel, ex-IRS agent, PI-in-training has a reputation—he specializes in body parts.

IRS agent-turned-PI Mortimer Angel is relaxing in a hole-in-the-wall bar in a Reno casino when an attractive young girl hires him to find out who left her a cryptic message demanding a million dollars.

At the girl’s house, Mort finds the body of missing rapper Jonnie Xenon—Jo-X to his legions of fans—hanging from the rafters with two bullet holes in him. Mort is shocked when he learns the identity of the girl’s father—and even more shocked when he is hired to investigate the murder.

Mort, being Mort, accumulates a few felonies as he follows the clues to Las Vegas. And along the way, he picks up an alluring young assistant who changes his life—in every conceivable way.

Embezzlement case turns murderous.

Early in July, northern Nevada’s senior Internal Revenue Service agent, Ronald Soranden—disliked by every agent in the Reno IRS office—vanished without a trace. In September, he makes a dramatic reappearance, of sorts. His skull—stripped clean and white—is dropped through the slashed top of a Mustang convertible. The vehicle belongs to Lucy Landry, PI Mortimer Angel’s gorgeous young assistant now working with him on a seemingly unrelated embezzlement case.

But Mort is a former IRS field agent in Reno. He’d done his time during the tyrannical reign of Soranden, quitting, he says, “when I discovered I have a soul.” Now that his former boss’s head has appeared, he and Lucy find them themselves under the annoying surveillance of a pair of IRS enforcement agents.

When the FBI are brought in to investigate the murder, Mort and Lucy realize shocking details about their own case—primarily Soranden’s involvement. It becomes evident that events and suspects of the embezzlement case and Soranden’s murder are heavily entangled with those enmeshed in an ugly case of blackmail. 

Mort and Lucy are roped tighter and tighter into the Soranden investigation while they grapple with the deadliest situation of their PI careers. Mortimer Angel has been in harrowing, lethal situations before and has suffered incalculable losses, but none more horrifying than the trap embedded in Gumshoe Rock.

Blackmail, murder, and a pretty girl on the run.

Nevada’s attorney general is missing. At dusk on a deserted Nevada highway in a thunderstorm, ex-IRS agent and PI-in-training Mortimer Angel comes across a pretty, scantily-clad girl—Harper Leland. She’s cold and alone, thirty miles from the nearest town.

When Mort offers her a ride, she orders him out of his truck at gunpoint. She tries to take off, but he cuts the valve stem on the rear tire. Realizing she’s in trouble, he wants to help—but with no spare tire, he devises a creative way to get them out of the hills—slowly, precariously balanced on three tires. On their way down, a rough-looking man stops and asks Mort if he has “seen anyone up in the hills.” Mort realizes the guy is after Harper, who is hiding in the truck.

Thus begins a cat-and-mouse chase in northeast Nevada that continues even after Mort finds the attorney general—Harper’s mother—dead in the trunk of a car. In time, Mort’s wife, Lucy, is also pulled into the case, which becomes the deadliest of Mort’s career.

Sixth novel in the "Gumshoe" series. Kidnapped by a gorgeous girl in a casino bar in Reno, Mortimer Angel disappears for several days. When he finally makes contact with his friends and family, he's on a new case, one that takes him on more than one unexpected journey, then becomes a new case with more unexpected journeys. This time, Mort travels more roads than he has ever traveled before, and ends up in a place he could never have predicted.

The U.S. attorney general, Susan D. Kenny, is missing. She walked out of the DOJ building in D.C. without a word to anyone, caught a taxi, and . . . vanished. 

A week later, Mortimer Angel, private eye (in training) and reluctant finder of famous missing persons, is surreptitiously contacted by a Secret Service agent and asked to fly to the nation’s capital to use his ineffable brand of skill, talent, or just plain luck to help find the still-missing attorney general. 

Mort declines that dubious honor, but less than twelve hours later he is taken at gunpoint by—what else?—a gorgeous girl and dragged into the bawdiest and most improbable case of his career.

Long ago Philidor taught that "pawns are the soul of chess." Today we know that understanding the pawn structure is vital when choosing a plan of action for the middlegame. Indeed, any correct middle- game plan depends on knowing how the pawns will behave - only then is it clear where the pieces should go! 

That is why Middlegame Strategy takes the guesswork out of planning in chess. Here NM Robert Leininger examines a single key pawn structure (seen on the cover), exploring each of its possibilities in detail. Concentrating on one fundamental pawn formation lets you cut through the clutter, focusing on how the pawns determine which course is best. With Middlegame Strategy, the art of sound planning in chess can be mastered by players of any level.

Known in Russia as the "Carlsbad" pawn structure, this ever-popular middlegame formation is famous in the Queen's Gambit after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.cxd5 exd5, but is also common in the Gruenfeld, Nimzo-Indian and other openings. The Carlsbad is a flexible and dynamic mainstay in the repertoires of many top Grandmasters, who can devise subtle, long range plans because they understand the pawn structure. 

Middlegame Strategy explains every aspect of this complex formation, including the minority attack, hanging pawns, the isolated d-pawn and much more. The lessons learned here will help any player make his middlegame decisions with accuracy and confidence.