Dead Man's Doubt

By Erik L Seabury

When a desperate sister hires ex-SEAL private eye Joey McCall to find a missing young woman, the trail drags him into a Russian trafficking ring, a city full of paid-off predators, and a war that threatens the bar, the woman, and the found family keeping him alive.
Santa Cruz has its postcards: sunburned tourists, neon boardwalk lights, cold Pacific wind, and bars where the night can still pretend to be harmless.
Joey McCall knows the city underneath that shine. Ex-SEAL. Former cop. Private eye above Wally Hamideh's grocery. A man with a restored 454 Chevelle Super Sport, a dead daughter, a dead wife, and a locked room of grief he refuses to enter.
Then a terrified sister walks up his stairs and begs him to find Mara, a young woman swallowed by a brutal Russian trafficking operation using bathhouses, clubs, shipping fronts, and dirty protection to move through the coast like a sickness.
Joey takes the case because he has never learned how to walk away from somebody scared. Jinx, his best friend and brother from the SEAL days, brings jokes sharp enough to hide old wounds. Aaron Hayes brings calm that costs him more than he admits. Big Raz, Rush, Kimmie, JV, Tony Laguna, Jose Carrillo, Wally, Baz, Cy, and Bobby Thai each pull the case in deeper, until the line between friend, outlaw, witness, and weapon starts to bleed.
At the center of it all stands Tina Nichole Smith's beachside bar, The Wake, a place of heat lamps, Christmas lights, pool balls, cold beer, hard laughter, and people trying to stay human after violence has had its say. Tina knows Joey's courage. She also knows his worst habit: he will risk his life for the living while keeping the dead closer than anyone who still loves him.
As the Russians touch The Wake, threaten Tina, and leave blood across the life Joey has barely managed to rebuild, the case becomes more than a rescue. It becomes a test of whether Joey McCall can save a missing woman without turning every wound into another grave.
Dead Man's Doubt is a bruising action-noir thriller packed with muscle-car fury, Santa Cruz grit, found-family loyalty, vicious close-quarters violence, and the kind of grief that does not ask permission before it speaks

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H8G13Y4J
• ISBN13: 9798186714491
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 458 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"