Sharky's Machine

Italy, 1944: A squad of American soldiers on a dangerous secret mission is ambushed and slaughtered . . . and a fortune in gold vanishes.

Hong Kong, 1959: An aging American colonel, haunted by his wartime past, is brutally murdered in a luxurious brothel.

Atlanta, 1975: The last survivor of the fatal World War II ambush in Italy is executed at point blank range in a parking lot.

Blowing away a crazed, gun-wielding drug dealer on a crowded city bus gets police detective Sharky bounced from the narc squad into the dreaded dregs of the department-vice. That's where he stumbles on a high-priced call girl and her pimp who are fleecing rich johns in an even higher-priced blackmail scam. Together with his 'machine' of hard-bitten vice squad veterans, Sharky closes in for a big sting. He doesn't count on falling for Domino, his alluring target. Or falling into the middle of the murderous design she's a part of-involving a hot presidential candidate, the shadowy multimillionaire who's backing him, and the ice-cold assassin they're using to wipe out the past . . . before it blows their future to hell.

'Every chapter crackles with sex, violence, and corruption.'

-The Washington Post

'Fast-paced, attention-holding, hard-hitting.'

-Chicago Tribune

'A slam-bang ending that should shock the most jaded thriller reader.'

-The Associated Press

24-CARAT ACTION!

VICTOR DELAROZA is the ruthless multi-millionaire kingmaker who caters to the whims and pleasures of the super-rich and the super-powerful..

DONALD HOTCHINS is the senator who wants power

— the ultimate power in the land — unaware that the woman he loves and the man whose money he needs, hide scandals so devastating that they could break him forever .

SHARKY is the gritty cop from the Vice Squad who hears some shockingly obscene tapes that draw him into a world of lethal secrets and dangerous seductions .

And they all have a fatal weakness for ... DOMINO, ravishing, fascinating companion of millionaires and politicians — America’s most bizarrely skilled and exclusive callgirl .

It started one continent and three decades away — and SHARKY’S MACHINE is the superb, solid-bullion action-thriller that pulls it all together. Here is a world of stunning violence, outrageous sex, sinister intrigue and heart-stopping intercontinental adventure, announcing the mega-thrill explosion of a new major thriller-writing talent.

Also by William Diehl in Warner Books:

HOOLIGANS

WILLIAM DIEHL

Sharky’s Machine

WARNER BOOKS

A Warner Book

First published in Great Britain by

Hutchinson& Co (Publishers) Ltd 1978

Published by Sphere Books 1979

Reprinted 1979, 1982 (twice), 1983, 1985, 1986,

1987, 1988, 1990

Reprinted by Warner Books 1994

Reprinted 1995, 1996

Copyright © 1978 by William Diehl

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced,