A Butch Karp-Marlene Ciampi Thriller

Latest release: August 15, 2017
Series
11
Books

About this ebook series

New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum has more than seven million copies of his finely crafted and morally complex novels in print. In True Justice, he reaches new heights with a compellingly authentic and penetrating story pulled right form today's most controversial headlines.

For Butch Karp, chief assistant district attorney for New York County, the nightmare begins when a shocking act of negligence results in homicide. Goaded by the media's sensational publicity, the public is screaming for blood, and Karp's boss, D.A. Jack Keegan, is listening. He has ordered the prosecution of a fifteen-year-old for murder, intent on making a very public example of the girl. A Hispanic from a poor neighborhood, she's an easy mark for big-city bureaucracy and bigotry. It is Butch Karp's unpleasant job to see that the prosecution gives the public what it wants: a quick and thorough administration of hard-line justice.

Complicating matters further is Butch's wife, Marlene Ciampi, a private investigator who has decided to return to practicing law. Her first case takes her a few hundred miles south to a small Delaware town, where an equally unspeakable tragedy has taken place. Marlene, however, has the unenviable task of taking on a politically ambitious local prosecutor who is pressing to charge a suburban teenager with capital murder.

With Butch and Marlene squaring off on opposite sides of an increasingly incendiary national debate, things couldn't get any more tense...until a shocking turn of events puts their daughter, Lucy, at the center of a horrifying crime. Suddenly, everything they believe in is challenged, and they are drawn into a maelstrom of big-city politics and small-town values, where justice is sacrificed to the twin gods of public perception and expediency -- and Karp must struggle to salvage his self-respect, his career, and his life.
True Justice
Book 12 · Apr 2015 ·
4.4
New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum has more than seven million copies of his finely crafted and morally complex novels in print. In True Justice, he reaches new heights with a compellingly authentic and penetrating story pulled right form today's most controversial headlines.

For Butch Karp, chief assistant district attorney for New York County, the nightmare begins when a shocking act of negligence results in homicide. Goaded by the media's sensational publicity, the public is screaming for blood, and Karp's boss, D.A. Jack Keegan, is listening. He has ordered the prosecution of a fifteen-year-old for murder, intent on making a very public example of the girl. A Hispanic from a poor neighborhood, she's an easy mark for big-city bureaucracy and bigotry. It is Butch Karp's unpleasant job to see that the prosecution gives the public what it wants: a quick and thorough administration of hard-line justice.

Complicating matters further is Butch's wife, Marlene Ciampi, a private investigator who has decided to return to practicing law. Her first case takes her a few hundred miles south to a small Delaware town, where an equally unspeakable tragedy has taken place. Marlene, however, has the unenviable task of taking on a politically ambitious local prosecutor who is pressing to charge a suburban teenager with capital murder.

With Butch and Marlene squaring off on opposite sides of an increasingly incendiary national debate, things couldn't get any more tense...until a shocking turn of events puts their daughter, Lucy, at the center of a horrifying crime. Suddenly, everything they believe in is challenged, and they are drawn into a maelstrom of big-city politics and small-town values, where justice is sacrificed to the twin gods of public perception and expediency -- and Karp must struggle to salvage his self-respect, his career, and his life.
Fury
Book 17 · Sep 2005 ·
3.8
Bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum astonishes readers with Fury, his most explosive book yet in the staggeringly popular Butch Karp/Marlene Ciampi series.
In Brooklyn, a female jogger is brutally raped; the assailants are convicted and later exonerated by the Kings County DA. Now the guilty are filing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the city of New York, the police, and the two assistant DAs who tried the case. While the cops and the criminal justice system are under media assault and opportunist political demagoguery, Karp has suspicions that there is corruption within his own office.
Against a backdrop of Russian mobsters and corrupt lawyers, Butch and Marlene are on a mission to restore the system's lost dignity and bring the rapists to justice. All the while terrorists are at it again, planning to blow the roof off Times Square on New Year's Eve. Alas, the Karp family finds itself in lethal jeopardy, and to survive, they must team up and fight their greatest battle yet.
Robert K. Tanenbaum has written a mindboggling thriller involving a web of corruption and courtroom confrontations. Fans of Butch Karp, as well as the classic New York crime drama, will find plenty to sink their teeth into with Fury.
Malice: Includes Bonus Chapter from Betrayed
Book 19 · Aug 2007 ·
0.0
The Karp family is back at it in Malice, bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum's most suspenseful book yet in the Butch Karp/Marlene Ciampi series.

New York District Attorney Butch Karp, recovering from an assassination attempt that came within a few millimeters of killing him, takes on a shadowy cartel that uses terrorists to further its criminal empire while sliding the United States toward a fascist state that the cartel controls. As Karp struggles to uncover those responsible for planning the terrorist murders of six school- children, he goes to the aid of the younger brother of his college roommate, who has been unfairly suspended from his position as baseball coach at a university in Idaho.

Meanwhile, Marlene Ciampi is in Idaho to help her husband with the investigation, and she befriends a Basque sheepherder who is demanding answers to the disappearance of his daughter -- a pretty college coed he suspects is having an affair with the school's president -- which may be related to Karp's case. And if that wasn't enough, the couple's daughter, Lucy, and her eclectic group of accomplices must uncover a traitor's plot and stop an assassination attempt surreptitiously planned to occur in the heart of Manhattan.

Malice is filled with twists and story lines torn from today's headlines, and once again delivers Tanenbaum's one-of-a-kind courtroom scenes that, by the exciting climax, have been woven into a single, brilliant tapestry of action and suspense.
Capture
Book 21 · Jun 2009 ·
4.8
When a rising starlet from Spanish Harlem dies from a gunshot wound in the fashionable downtown penthouse of an eccentric and famous Broadway producer, New York District Attorney Roger "Butch" Karp and his hard-charging, crime-fighting wife, Marlene Ciampi, smell drama. Karp is outraged at claims by the producer and his high-powered attorney that the "troubled" actress committed suicide. With the help of a fearful witness who Marlene convinces to speak out, Karp wages a relentless battle for justice against a notorious defendant, a legion of experts, and a barrage of hostile threats.

Meanwhile, a shadowy international power group called the Sons of Man kidnaps Karp's daughter, Lucy, as she attempts to thwart the latest terrorist threat against New York City. Karp races to decode a baffling series of riddles left behind by the group's mastermind, his longtime enemy, to uncover the terrorists' true target and save Lucy from certain death. The key may lie within the fevered mind of David Grale, a half-mad religious vigilante who has mysteriously retreated beneath the city.

Hunted by a beautiful but deadly Russian assassin, Karp and his eclectic band of accomplices must infiltrate the Sons of Man before the group's scheme for world dominion succeeds. But, little does Karp know: the clock is ticking down on New York City as an invisible force prepares to unleash Armageddon.

With more than twelve million copies of his books in print, Robert K. Tanenbaum is a true "master of the legal thriller" (Vincent Bugliosi) whose yanked-from-the-headlines adventures keep readers rapt until each breathtaking conclusion.
Betrayed
Book 22 · Jul 2010 ·
4.0
From the dark fantasies of a sexual underworld to the darkest realities of a terrorist conspirator, New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum draws District Attorney Butch Karp deep into a combustible courtroom game of politics, power, lies, and murder.

Awaiting trial in the Tombs, Manhattan’s infamous criminal detention complex, is Sharif Jabbar, the demagogic founder of a Harlem mosque. Charges against his terrorist attack on the city were dismissed once, and now that the Islam convert is being held on new allegations, New York District Attorney Roger “Butch” Karp is determined to bring him down. He faces formidable competition. Attorney Megan O’Dowd, a radical activist enthralled with revolutionary rhetoric, is going to the mat with the uncompromising conviction that Jabbar is being railroaded by the NYPD.

Outside the criminal courts, Karp’s wife, Marlene Ciampi, is pursuing her own investigation. Allegations against indigent Manhattan street vendor Dirty Warren in the murder of society beauty Michelle Oakley don’t sit right with Marlene. Unfortunately her sole ally is religious vigilante David Grale, the charismatic but deranged leader of the Mole People. What Grale knows about city corruption snakes as far and wide as the dank honeycomb of the sewers and tunnels his destitute army calls home.

Then Marlene discovers an unexpected— and ugly—parallel between the Oakley murder and the disappearance of another debutante: a treacherous underworld of upscale call girls and the price paid for indulging the wealthiest of men. As she explores these sordid truths, Butch Karp navigates his own tortured waters. What he soon discovers is that everyone, from the conspiratorial Jabbar and O’Dowd to the city’s most powerful, unimpeachable players—has a secret that could either set them free or cost them more than they ever feared.

With more than twelve million copies of his books in print, Robert K. Tanenbaum continues to rivet readers to their seats with the kind of explosive thrillers that have made him “a writer worth knowing” (Washington Post ).
Outrage
Book 23 · Jun 2011 ·
3.6
In Robert K. Tanenbaum’s electrifying thriller, District Attorney Butch Karp battles a failure of the system, a police detective desperate to solve a case for his own ends, and a homicidal maniac who will stop at nothing to protect the truth.

Months after a brutal double homicide in uptown Manhattan shocks the city, sensational newspaper headlines herald the arrest and indictment of Felix Acevedo, a shy Bronx teenager who confessed to the horrific crimes. But downtown, in the district attorney’s office, Butch Karp is seething.

No sooner does he bask in the relief of successfully closing the case on murderous imam Sharif Jabbar than he is thrust into the center of a high-profile prosecution that threatens the integrity of his office. An ambitious young assistant district attorney, seeking career advancement, cuts corners to indict Acevedo, disregarding Karp’s fundamental rule: Never charge the accused unless the evidence leads inexorably to proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, damned by a coerced confession and a frenzied media bent on lynching him, Acevedo sits in jail while a vicious killer stalks the city.

Karp’s wife, Marlene Ciampi, one half of the “crime-fighting family” proclaimed by the media, hits the streets for clues that will save the unjustly accused defendant. What she discovers puts her on the trail of the true perpetrator—a drug-addicted psychopath with an ax to grind—and a disgruntled police detective who is willing to lie, withhold evidence, and kill to be labeled a hero. But it also puts her in the center of a dangerous race to be the last man standing and if she’s not careful, one of the other players will take the prize.

From the gruesome crime scene to a trial that will leave readers on the edge of their seats, Robert K. Tanenbaum’s unstoppable novel unfolds at breakneck speed as Karp and Ciampi fight for justice in a dramatic and challenging case that will thrill readers to the bone.
Bad Faith
Book 24 · Jun 2012 ·
4.4
A parent’s worst nightmare sets the stage for the exhilarating new thriller in Robert K. Tanenbaum’s New York Times bestselling Butch Karp series.

New York District Attorney Butch Karp has no qualms about putting David and Nonie Ellis on trial following the excruciating death of their young son, Micah. To him, the case is cut-and-dried—reckless manslaughter. Helpless ten-year-old Micah counted on his parents to protect him from the effects of a rare but treatable cancer. Instead, the Ellis family relied solely on prayer and the guidance of snake-oil salesman Reverend C. G. Westlund, of the End of Days Reformation Church of Jesus Christ Resurrected, to save him.

Westlund and his zealous followers set up camp outside the DA’s office, angrily protesting the indictment of their “brother” and “sister,” but the charismatic leader’s true objective is to create a diversion from an alarming fraud. He coerced Nonie Ellis into signing an insurance policy that listed himself and the church as beneficiaries in the event of Micah’s death, but he needs the Ellises to be exonerated to get the payout. When David Ellis discovers the deception, no amount of faith can save him from his gruesome fate.

Amid the firestorm of controversy surrounding the case, Karp’s wife, private investigator Marlene Ciampi, heads to Memphis to uncover Westlund’s past. The evidence she finds is enough to blow the top off the con man’s scheme—if she doesn’t get herself blown away in the process. Back in Manhattan, meanwhile, Karp is confronted by a deadly nemesis from the past who has explosive plans of her own. The edge-of-your-seat action comes to a head at the annual Halloween parade when a merciless struggle between good and evil metes out its own fatal form of justice.
Fatal Conceit: A Novel
Book 26 · Aug 2014 ·
4.5
A CIA chief dies under suspicious circumstances before he can testify about a controversial government cover-up involving a terrorist attack on the US mission in Chechnya. Butch Karp is on the case in this exciting installment to Robert K. Tanenbaum’s bestselling series.

When the CIA director is murdered, Butch Karp finds himself battling a heavyweight opponent: the US government. The national presidential election campaign’s foreign policy mantra has been that the terrorists are on the run and Bin Laden is dead. There are rumors that the CIA chief was going to deviate from the administration version of events, and that the government may have had something to do with his death. Can Karp expose the cover-up and find the Chechnyan separatists who aided the Americans at the mission and who have firsthand knowledge of the terrorist attack? Karp must also find his missing daughter, who has been taken hostage by the terrorists.

After the New York grand jury indicts the national presidential campaign chairman and the NSA spymaster for the murder of the CIA chief, Karp engages in an unforgettable courtroom confrontation with the defendants who have the full weight of the US administration, a hostile judge, and a compliant media supporting them. These sinister forces will stop at nothing to prevent Karp from bringing out the truth, even if they have to resort to murder.
Trap
Book 27 · Aug 2015 ·
4.4
“The pace is fast, the courtroom scenes make you feel like you’re there” (Kirkus Reviews)—a devastating deadly explosion sets a breakneck tone that never lets up in New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum’s action-packed Butch Karp legal drama.

A tremendous fatal blast rocks a book-signing event where supporters have gathered to see the inspirational leading advocate for New York City charter schools, a Holocaust survivor. A neo-Nazi is the prime suspect, but District Attorney Butch Karp believes the hate crime may be a cover-up for a more sinister plot. The treacherous teacher’s union president has long been furious at the unqualified successes of the charter school movement, which threatens to expose his corrupt practices—manipulation and misappropriation of union funds and, now, possibly even murder.

But is there another motive behind the attack that could derail the case? How will Karp discover the set-up, and can he do so in time to bring justice? This exciting legal thriller ends in a dramatic courtroom showdown that proves New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum is always at the top of his game.
Infamy
Book 28 · Sep 2016 ·
3.7
The “rock-solid” (Kirkus Reviews) prosecutor Butch Karp and his wife, Marlene Ciampi, return to solve the suspicious murder of a US colonel and battle corruption at the highest levels of the United States government in this novel by New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum.

Intrigue, murder, corruption, and dramatic courtroom battles combine to make Infamy another must-read in Robert K. Tanenbaum’s “tightly-written” (Booklist) legal thrillers. When a former Army veteran suddenly murders a colonel in New York, he claims that he had to do it because he was being used in mind control experiments. Surprisingly, a top Wall Street criminal defense lawyer, one with ties to the White House, decides to defend the killer, arguing that his client suffered from post-traumatic stress from his tours in Afghanistan and that it’s his patriotic duty to assist him.

As New York District Attorney Roger “Butch” Karp prepares a murder case against the veteran, he meets with investigative reporter Ariadne Stupenagel, who suspects that one of her sources for a story on high-level government corruption was a victim in the shooting. In this fast-paced thriller, Karp goes up against corruption so powerful that he, his family, and his friends are in danger if he intends to prosecute those responsible.
Without Fear or Favor: A Novel
Book 29 · Aug 2017 ·
4.8
The “best fictional prosecuting attorney in literature” (Mark Lane, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Butch Karp returns in this white-knuckled and timely thriller about a radical organization of armed militants bent on the cold-blooded murder of uniformed on-duty police officers.

Tensions have been building between the police force and the black rights activists in Harlem, and they reach a boiling point when a cop shoots down a seemingly unarmed teenager. The community, believing the teen had no weapon, rises up in anger and demands to have the officer prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But there’s something more than a call for justice at work here: a plot to bring down the city’s police force through a conspiracy so vast and malicious only N.Y.D.A Roger "Butch" Karp and his band of truth-seekers can untangle it.

Karp, along with Marlene and an eclectic cast of characters, seek to unravel the murder mystery without fear or favor. The prosecution of this heinous crime will be Karp's greatest confrontation with the forces of evil yet.

With more than fifteen million copies of his books in print, Robert K. Tanenbaum is a true "master of the legal thriller" (Vincent Bugliosi) whose straight-from-the-headlines adventures keep you rapt until each stunning and "postively balletic" (Booklist) conclusion.