Michael Sears books in order

After two years in federal prison, Jason Stafford is no longer welcome on Wall Street. But due to his financial crime expertise, one firm wants him to quietly look for irregularities in the books of one of their junior traders, whose body was just pulled from the Long Island Sound.

Raising an autistic five-year-old alone, Stafford can’t refuse the lucrative offer. The job is supposed to last two weeks, tops. But soon he’s facing threats and intimidation, and more people are dying. Stafford must fight for his life—while struggling to save his son from a different kind of danger…

William von Becker’s multibillion-dollar fund was limited to only the luckiest investors. Or so they thought.

After the house of cards collapses and the disgraced von Becker commits suicide in prison, his family asks Jason Stafford to find out where the money is—and who is targeting them with attempted kidnappings. There are plenty of angry suspects to take a look at. 

But with roughly three billion of von Becker’s ill-gotten dollars floating around somewhere, there are other interested parties as well. They’re determined. They’re powerful. And they’re not nearly as polite as the Feds…

Two years in a federal prison has changed Jason Stafford, but one thing it has taught him as a financial investigator is how to detect a lie. Though Philip Haley has been indicted for insider trading on his own company, Stafford believes him when he says he’s been set up. It does make him dangerous to be around, though. The deeper Stafford investigates, the more secrets he uncovers . . . secrets people would kill for.

Jason Stafford used to be a hot Wall Street trader, went too far, and paid for it in prison. Now a financial investigator, he’s been asked to look into rumors of a hostile takeover of his firm, but he has no idea it will turn his whole life upside down. 

Suddenly embroiled in a grand jury investigation of Mob-related activities on Wall Street, and threatened by some very serious men, he is thrust into witness protection with his young autistic son. And then his son disappears. 

Has he been kidnapped, or worse? With no choice but to act, Stafford has no choice but to come out of hiding and risk everything to save his son, his firm, his pregnant girlfriend—and himself.

Queens, New York—the most diverse place on earth. Native son Ted Molloy knows these streets like the back of his hand. Ted was once a high-powered Manhattan lawyer, but after a spectacular fall from grace, he has found himself back on his home turf, scraping by as a foreclosure profiteer. It’s a grubby business, but a safe one—until Ted’s case sourcer, a mostly reformed small-time conman named Richie Rubiano, turns up murdered shortly after tipping Ted off to an improbably lucrative lead.

With Richie’s widow on his back and shadows of the past popping up at every turn, Ted realizes he’s gotten himself embroiled in a murder investigation. His quest for the truth will take him all over Queens, plunging him into the machinations of greedy developers, mobsters, enraged activists, old litigator foes and old-school New York City operators.