Today is my turn on the Deadly Vengeance Blog Tour. I am very excited to be sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for DEADLY VENGEANCE (Detective Jane Phillips Book #3) by O.M.J. Ryan. I love this series!
Below you will find a book blurb, my book review, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Blurb
Some people can never escape their past.
When the fifteen-year-old daughter of UK munitions dealer, Sir Richard Hawkins vanishes without a trace – the race is on to find her. But Sir Richard and his wife’s worst fears are realised when they receive a video of Hollie, tied to a chair, with a masked man holding a gun to her head.
The ransom demands are simple, pay four million pounds in cash – or they’ll never see their daughter again. DCI Jane Phillips is assigned to the case, and has no idea of who, or what she’s up against. But as the investigation unfolds, it becomes clear Hollie’s kidnapping was the work of a formidable gang – who operate in the shadows and will stop at nothing to get what they want.
As the pressure mounts, can Phillips and the team find Hollie before it’s too late? Or will this investigation signal not only the death of the Major Crimes Unit, but one of her beloved team, as well?
DEADLY VENGEANCE (Detective Jane Phillips Book #3) by O.M.J. Ryan is the latest suspense/thriller/ British police procedural in the DCI Jane Phillips series. I love this series and am always very happy to return to Manchester with Jane and all her teammates.
Holly Hawkins is kidnapped from a Halloween party at her parent’s country club. It was a precision job with no clues left behind. Her parents receive a video of a terrified Holly stating her father has exactly one week to get four million pounds together for the ransom drop with no excuses or Holly will be killed.
DCI Phillips and her team are assigned the case, but they also have to deal with a Hostage Negotiator from the Met who wants all the glory without doing any of the work. Every clue ends in a dead end and the money must be dropped.
Will Jane and her team be able to find Holly as the pressure mounts, or will they be too late? And when they finally have a chance to solve the kidnapping, one of Jane’s team may not see it to the end.
There are a few British police procedural series that I absolutely have to keep up with and they are Angela Marsons’ Kim Stone series, Robert Brynzda’s Erika Foster series and O.M.J. Ryan’s Jane Phillips is the third. Mr. Ryan has created wonderful characters that could walk right off the page. His plots are always intricate and the investigations intriguing. This book, as the rest, can be read as a standalone because the main plot/crime is always solved in each book, but the characters grow and evolve so in my opinion it is more satisfying to read them in order.
I highly recommend this book and the entire Detective Jane Phillips series!
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Aboutthe Author
Hailing from Yorkshire, OMJ Ryan worked in radio and entertainment for over twenty years, collaborating with household names and accumulating a host of international writing and radio awards. In 2018 he followed his passion to become a full-time novelist, writing stories for people who devour exciting, fast-paced thrillers by the pool, on their commute – or those rare moments of downtime before bed. Owen’s mission is to entertain from the first page to the last.
Deadly Vengeance is the third Detective Jane Phillips book in the series and OMJ’s fourth book with Inkubator Books.
Today I am very excited to be the first stop on the Holiday Date Blog Tour! I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review of HOLIDAY DATE: Book 2 of the “Blind Date” Series by Debbie Ioanna.
Below you will find a book blurb, my book review, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Blurb
Relationships are tested in this highly anticipated sequel to ‘Blind Date’.
Jenny is back in this romantic comedy, and this time she has her man. Life is wonderful as she switches her sex dreams for the real thing with her hunk, Zack. As well as feeling loved up, she must also console her recently-single best friend, Sarah. Those much-loved blind dates make a welcome return as Jenny gets the sweet taste for vengeance.
After a girly holiday to Rome, and a somewhat unexpected vegan experience, Zack whisks Jenny abroad for a romantic holiday of their own. However, jolly holidays aren’t on the menu when faced with a twenty-something stunner in the next villa.
Holidays take the centre stage for this sequel, where relationships are put to the test, at home and abroad.
HOLIDAY DATE: Book 2 of the ‘Blind Date’ series by Debbie Ioanna is a contemporary romance/romcom which picks up with Jenny’s life nine months after the end of Blind Date. I would recommend reading these books in order. They are not long and they are easy to read.
Jenny and Zack are still together and very happy She is helping Sarah get on with her life after her parting with ‘The Wanker’. They take off together for two weeks on a girls only holiday in Rome.
Sarah is living with Jenny until she finds a new house and for just a little bit of revenge, Jenny makes Sarah sign up on the same dating app she made Jenny use. They keep their code word for rescues, but Jenny is just a little slow in responding. Turn around is fair play. After one disastrous date, a new name pops up on Sarah’s app, but how can she break it to Jenny?
When Sarah moves out, Zack moves in. Zack decides to invite Jenny on a holiday for the two of them and his parents at his family’s villa in Greece. What Jenny was not counting on was the beautiful blonde twenty-something in the neighboring villa who is much to familiar with her boyfriend.
I enjoyed this follow-up to Jenny, Zack and Sarah’s lives. While there are funny moments, this book is more about Jenny and Zack’s romance and Jenny and Sarah’s friendship. Not quite as laugh out loud funny as the first book, but I still loved catching up with Jenny’s life. Jenny is realistic and relatable which makes me want to be her friend, too. Bing Clawsby is also back. The plot has a few surprises in store for the reader that kept me turning the pages. The additional chapter added after the end of Holiday Date will finally answer the question of – What went so wrong on Jenny and Sarah’s trip to Zante? It ended the book on laugh.
I recommend this continuation of the Blind Date series and I am hoping for many more!
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About the Author
Debbie is a multi-genre indie author and blogger who was born in Bradford and lives there with her husband, two-year-old daughter and anti-social cat Cleo. When she isn’t busy being a Mum, working for her local council or studying towards her Open University degree, she is busy focusing on her writing career.
Debbie doesn’t write to just one genre as she likes to write about anything. She is currently working on a romantic-comedy series but who knows what she will be working on in the future. As well as writing novels, short stories and blogs for her website, she is also reviewing other works by indie authors. She is passionate about helping other indie authors as she knows it is a hard world to master and getting reviews is a challenge on its own.
Debbie has been a regular attending author at the UK Indie Lit Fest in Bradford for the last few years and will be returning in 2020, as well as attending events in Shipley and Liverpool for the first time.
Debbie began studying with the Open University in 2015, aiming towards a BA Honours in Humanities, focusing on History and Creative Writing which are her two greatest passions. It is a part-time course, due to end in 2021 which Debbie is hoping means she will have more time to write.
BLIND DATE by Debbie Ioanna is a new romcom by a new to me author that kept surprising me and making me laugh out loud even in public. This is a lighthearted delight of a story for a short and easy-to-read escape especially in these difficult times.
Jenny is thirty years old and has everything a girl could want. She owns her home has a good job and the best BF ever, Sarah. She even at time likes her rescue cat, Bing Clawsby, who makes it his life’s duty to destroy and surprise.
But Jenny can never find “The One”. Sarah sets her up on a disastrous blind date and then encourages Jenny to try a dating app. Delete. Her mother even attempts to play matchmaker. Escape. Jenny is even finding her sometimes hook-up buddy, not really working out.
Jenny wants the perfect man from work, Zach. When the stars align and Zach finally asks Jenny out, not once, but twice the dates are aborted. Will Jenny get the man of her dreams, or is she destined to be single for the rest of her life?
I did not want this book to end! Jenny is relatable, realistic and I would love to be her friend. Ms. Ioanna has created a lovable main character and a fun set of secondary characters that completely whisked me away from my own life and had me laughing, unlady like snorting and completely entertained.
I highly recommend this romcon and dare you not to laugh!
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About the Author
Debbie is a multi-genre indie author and blogger who was born in Bradford and lives there with her husband, two-year-old daughter and anti-social cat Cleo. When she isn’t busy being a Mum, working for her local council or studying towards her Open University degree, she is busy focusing on her writing career.
Debbie doesn’t write to just one genre as she likes to write about anything. She is currently working on a romantic-comedy series but who knows what she will be working on in the future. As well as writing novels, short stories and blogs for her website, she is also reviewing other works by indie authors. She is passionate about helping other indie authors as she knows it is a hard world to master and getting reviews is a challenge on its own.
Debbie has been a regular attending author at the UK Indie Lit Fest in Bradford for the last few years and will be returning in 2020, as well as attending events in Shipley and Liverpool for the first time.
Debbie began studying with the Open University in 2015, aiming towards a BA Honours in Humanities, focusing on History and Creative Writing which are her two greatest passions. It is a part-time course, due to end in 2021 which Debbie is hoping means she will have more time to write.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Reviews on the Utrecht Murders two book blog tour. UTRECHT SNOW and UTRECHT RAIN by Jonathan Wilkins which introduce the reader to a police investigative team in the city of Utrecht in the central Netherlands.
Below you will find book blurbs, the main cast of characters, my book reviews, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Blurbs
UTRECHT SNOW: Utrecht police inspector Caes Heda leads a team looking into the disappearance of young women. Meanwhile his daughter, Truus, bored with University takes up a job with disgraced former police office Thijs Orman at his Private Detective Agency and finds herself looking for yet another missing girl, this time it’s her bosses own daughter. are they all linked? At the Kroonstraat Police station the team Caes has put together look into the normal run of the mill cases and try to overcome the weather as much as the crime in the city as snow envelopes the streets of Utrecht. We meet twins Freddie and Maaike Meijer who patrol the streets together with colleagues Adrie and Danny. The team is made up by Madelon Verloet and man mountain Ernst Hougewood. Together they investigate car theft, street crime, assault and finally murder. We look at the everyday lives of the police involved, Caes still traumatised after his wifes early death and Truus falling for Maaike.
UTRECHT RAIN: Maaike Meijer is attacked in a senseless outbreak of violence at the Dom Tower in Utrecht. Her brother, Freddie, fights off the assailants, but how is the brutality linked to a series of violent threats, cyber crime and the Dutch Secret Service? Truus Heda continues her work as a private investigator whilst caring for her lover before finding the missing link. As the nightmare unfolds we enter the world of Serbian gangsters and Utrecht Goths and see how Hoofdinspecteur Caes Heda and his overworked team tackle a crime that could consume the city.
CAES HEDA – Hoofdinspecteur (Police Inspector) in charge of Kroonstraat Police Bureau in Utrecht
TRUUS HEDA – 19-year-old daughter of Caes Heda, student at Universiteit, apprentice to Private Investigator Thijs Orman
MADELON VERLOET – Hoofdagent (Detective)
ANDRE VOELMAN – Hoofdagent (Detective)
DANNY MEEUWEN – Surveillant
FREDERIK MEIJER (twin brother to Maaike) – Police Agent
MAAIKE MEIJER (twin sister to Frederik) -Police Agent
ERNST HOEWEGAN – Brigadier
THIJS ORMAN – Particulier Onderzoeks Bureau (Private Investigator), discharged from police force due to drug use, training Truus Heda
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My Book Review
UTRECHT SNOW by Jonathan Wilkins is a police procedural thriller set in Utrecht, Netherlands. I was attracted to the book by the cover and the unique setting. Utrecht is in the central Netherlands and was considered a religious center for centuries. It has a medieval old town, canals, gothic cathedral of St. Martin and a 14th century bell tower. This series is set in present time.
Young women are missing from the Universiteit and Hoofdinspector Caes Heda and his team are on the case. All the girls appear to have nothing in common other than not having family or friends that would raise the alarm at their disappearance.
At the same time, Truus Heda, Caes’ daughter bored with Universiteit, has accepted an apprenticeship with Private Investigator Thijs Orman a disgraced ex-cop. One of the missing girls is Thijs’ daughter, Steer. Which brings the police, Truus and Thijs all together to solve the disappearances.
As capable as Truus believes herself to be, she unknowingly runs into the dangerous killer. Now Caes and his team have to find and save the girls, including his daughter. Will they find them alive?
I did have difficulty at first getting into this story, but I am glad I persevered. There are I feel too many Dutch words used throughout the book to pull in the average reader. I found it authentic and interesting, but I did have to work at accepting this was how it was written. The missing girls and the murders all were paced well, which lead to a good thriller plot.
I do wish this was written as an introductory novella rather than a full-length book because there was too much repetition of Caes dealing with the loss of his wife, Truus’ kickboxing, Maaike’s judo and Truus and Maaike’s relationship. One scene on each would have been enough, but it was repeated excessively. I felt there should have been more attention to the thriller plot and much less on their private lives.
I enjoyed this introduction to a new, unique location and way of policing. The characters are fully fleshed out and the thriller plot was good. I just feel there is too much emphasis on scenes not necessary to the plot and it should be edited down to a novella with more focus. (Check out my next review for Utrecht Rain because I believe it is a much more focused and polished thriller.)
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My Book Review
RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars
UTRECHT RAIN by Jonathan Wilkins is the second police procedural thriller book in the Utrecht Murder series featuring Chief Inspector Caes Heda and his team. This book can easily be read as a standalone.
Maaike’s is attacked while on patrol with her twin by a group all in black and severely beaten before Frederik can get to her.
While she is recuperating with Truus looking after her, Truus is pulled off the street and taken to AIVD headquarters (AIVD is the General Intelligence and Security Service in the Netherlands) and asked to share information regarding a client that Thijs is surveilling.
At the same time Caes and the team are working not one, but two bank robberies pulled off simultaneously with all alarms and CCTV hacked. Each bank had five robbers all in black with bats and guns and they took the exact same amount of money.
All these investigations intertwine and converge with Maaike’s assault, Utrecht Goths, a computer genius and the Serbian mob. Will Caes and his team be able to solve everything in time to save the city?
I really enjoyed this unique look at criminal investigation, life and culture in the Netherlands. This second book in the series is much easier to read than the first with less Dutch, it is more reader friendly. The characters are fully-fleshed out and there is no confusion even if this is the first book you read. The fast pace and intersection of plot point revelations between Caes and his team’s investigation and Truus’ investigation leave you always with a reason to keep turning the pages.
A police procedural thriller from a unique place and culture with characters well worth following.
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About Jonathan Wilkins
Jonathan loves to write. He is a retired teacher, lapsed Waterstones’ bookseller and former Basketball Coach. He taught PE and English for 20 years and coached women’s basketball for over 30 years.
He regularly teaches creative writing workshops in and around Leicester.
I am excited to share my Feature Post and Book Review for the fourth book in this Harlequin Intrigue multi-author series – RUNNING OUT OF TIME (Tactical Crime Division Book #4) by Cindi Myers.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section with book purchase links. Enjoy!
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Book Description
Welcome to the Tactical Crime Division, a rapid-deployment joint team of FBI agents specializing in hostage negotiation, missing persons, IT, profiling, shootings and terrorism, with Director Jill Pembrook at the head.
When a terrorist is on the loose, the Tactical Crime Division is on the case.
To find out who poisoned medications, two of TCD’s agents are tapped to go undercover posing as a married couple and infiltrate the company. But as soon as Jace Cantrell and Laura Smith arrive at Stroud Pharmaceuticals, someone ups the ante by planting explosives in their midst. Turns out that the small-town family business is hiding a million secrets. Could they unknowingly be protecting a vengeful killer?
RUNNING OUT OF TIME (Tactical Crime Division Book #4) by Cindi Myers is the fourth book in this Harlequin Intrigue multi-author series featuring members of the FBIs Tactical Crime Division. This is a specialized unit of the FBI formed to handle the toughest cases at a moment’s notice anywhere in the country.
Family owned Stroud Pharmaceuticals is the major employer in the small town of Mayville. The TCD is called in to discover who tampered with the company’s best-selling herbal Stomach Soothers. The tampered bottles contained ricin and have so far killed six.
Jace Cantrell and Laura Smith are partnered undercover to portray a married couple working in the plant. The easy-going, rule-bending Jace is not sure how well this will work with the by-the-rules, uptight Laura. As they work to find the killer, they soon have even more to unravel as a bomb explodes by a plant door and kills an employee. They soon uncover that there were more bombs made.
The couple now needs to figure out if they have one killer or two and what is the motive before more people are killed. As the tension and suspense build to solve this case, so does the heat in their undercover marriage.
I enjoyed this addition to the series. It is a romantic suspense with a well written balance between the romance and the suspense. The ‘opposites attract’ romance is paced believably and both characters are fully fleshed for this shorter book. The sex scenes are short and just barely explicit. The suspense plot kept me guessing, not so much regarding who was guilty, but who was responsible for which criminal activity. I felt the romance was predictable, but I enjoyed the characters and the suspense kept me engrossed and turning the pages right up to ‘The End’.
I enjoyed this romantic suspense addition to the TCD series!
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Excerpt
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Special Agent Laura “Smitty” Smith – A disciplined agent who never breaks the rules, Laura must go undercover as a newlywed to find the person responsible for a rash of poisonings and bombings in a small West Virginia town.
Special Agent Jace Cantrell – the military veteran and special ops expert has a reputation as a rebel and a rule breaker – exactly the kind of man to clash with Laura, yet the two must pose as husband and wife to solve a case that brings death to their very doorstep.
Donna Stroud – The head of Stroud Pharmaceuticals intends to keep her company going and her family together in the face of tragedy, but how far will she go to do so?
Parker Stroud – Donna’s son chafes at his parents’ unwillingness to put him in charge of the family business.
Merry Winger – Parker’s girlfriend has big plans to marry Parker, despite his parents’ disapproval of their relationship and Parker’s own reluctance to make their relationship public.
Leo Elgin – His mother was poisoned by tainted medication manufactured by Stroud. He holds a grudge against the Stroud family.
Tactical Crime Division – Rapid-deployment joint team of FBI agents specializing in hostage negotiation, missing persons, IT, profiling, shootings and terrorism with director Jill Pembrook at the head.
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“We’ve got another tough case on our hands.” Jill Pembroke, director of the FBI’s tactical crime division, surveyed her team from the head of the conference table in the Bureau’s Knoxville headquarters. “One that re-quires a great deal of discretion.”
Something in the director’s tone made Agent Laura Smith sharpen her focus. Pembroke, with her well-cut silver hair and feminine suit, might be mistaken for a high society grandmother, but she was as hard-nosed as they came, and not prone to exaggeration. That she reminded her team of the need for discretion pointed to something out of the ordinary.
The door to the conference room opened and a man slipped in. Tall and rangy, Agent Jace Cantrell moved with the grace of an athlete. He nodded to the director and eased into the empty seat next to Laura. No apology for being late. Typical. Laura slid her chair over a couple of inches. Cantrell was one of those men who always seemed to take up more than his share of the available space.
“We’re going to be investigating product tampering at Stroud Pharmaceuticals in Mayville, West Virginia.”
Director Pembroke stepped aside to reveal a slide showing a squat factory building set well back on landscaped grounds.
“The antacid poisonings.” Agent Ana Ramirez spoke from her seat directly across from Laura. She tucked a strand of dark hair into the twist at the nape of her neck, polished nails glinting in the overhead light. “That story has been all over the news.”
“Do the locals not want the FBI horning in?” Agent Davis Rogers—the only member of the team not wearing the regulation suit—sat back in his chair beside Ramirez, looking every bit the army ranger he had once been. “Is that why the extra discretion?”
“No, the local police are happy to turn this over to us,” Pembroke said. She advanced to the next slide, a listing of the deaths—six so far, with two additional people hospitalized—attributed to Stroud’s Stomach Soothers, a natural, organic remedy that claimed a significant share of the market as an alternative to traditional antacids. “This hasn’t been released to the public, but the poison in the contaminated tablets was ricin.”
Laura would have sworn the temperature in the air-conditioned room dropped five degrees. “Any suggestion of a link to terrorism?” Hostage negotiator Evan Duran, bearded and brooding, spoke from the end of the table. “Anybody claiming credit for the deaths?”
Pembroke shook her head. “At this point, we aren’t assuming anything. Obviously, we want to avoid panicking the public.”
“The public is already panicked,” Rowan Cooper, the team’s local liaison, said. “People have been organizing boycotts of all Stroud products.” She absently twisted a lock of her jet-black hair, brow furrowed. “We’ll need a strategy for managing the public’s response.”
“The facility where the Stomach Soothers were manufactured has been closed for the time being and the product is being pulled from store shelves,” Pembroke said. “But another facility in town, which manufactures other items, remains open, and the company has reduced hours and reassigned as many employees as possible to the single plant. The company, the town, even the state officials, are very anxious to downplay this tragedy and get Stroud up and running full-speed as soon as possible.”
“Why do that?” Kane Bradshaw, Agent-at-Large, said. Laura hadn’t noticed him until now, seated as he was behind her and apart from the rest, almost in the shadows. Kane always looked as if he’d just rushed in from an overnight surveillance, all wind-blown hair and shadowed eyes. The fact that he was here spoke to the gravity of this case. While always on hand when the team needed him, he wasn’t much on office decorum.
“Jobs.” Cantrell’s voice, deep and a little rough, like a man who smoked two packs a day, sent a shiver through Laura. He didn’t smoke, but maybe he once had. “Stroud Pharmaceuticals is one of the biggest employers in Boone County,” he continued. “The coal mines are shutting down, and there isn’t a lot of other industry. Stroud has been a savior to the community. They—and the officials they elected—are going to do everything in their power to keep the company running and redeem its reputation.”
“Even covering up murder?” Laura asked.
Cantrell turned to her, his gaze cool. “I doubt they want to cover it up, but they’ll definitely downplay it and keep it quiet.”
“They want us to help, but they don’t want us to be obvious.” The youngest member of the team, computer specialist Hendrick Maynard, jiggled his knee as he spoke. A genius who looked younger than his twenty-six years, Maynard never sat still.
“Precisely.” Director Pembroke advanced to another slide of a small town—tree-shaded streets lined with modest homes, some worse for wear. A water tower in the distance displayed the word Mayville in faded green paint. “Agents Smith and Cantrell, you are to pose as a married couple and take jobs at the Stroud factory. Investigations so far point to the poisonings having originated from within the plant itself, so your job is to identify possible suspects and investigate. Agent Rogers, you’ll be in town as well…”
Laura didn’t hear the rest of the director’s assignments. She was focused on trying to breathe and holding back her cry of protest. She and Cantrell? As a couple? The idea was ridiculous. He was rough, undisciplined, arrogant, scornful…
“You look like you just ate a bug.” Cantrell leaned to-ward her, bringing with him the disconcerting aroma of cinnamon. His gravelly voice abraded her nerves. “Don’t think I’m any more excited about this than you are.”
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About the Author
Cindy Myers became one of the most popular people in eighth grade when she and her best friend wrote a torrid historical romance and passed the manuscript around among friends. Fame was short-lived, alas; the English teacher confiscated the manuscript. Since then, Cindy has written more than 50 published novels. Her historical and contemporary romances and women’s fiction have garnered praise from reviewers and readers alike.
YOU CAN GO HOME NOW by Michael Elias is an exciting new thriller with a female detective on the case of a killer of abusive spouses while simultaneously on her lifelong quest for her personal revenge against the killer of her father.
Homicide Detective Nina Karim is called out to the scene of a murder and finds the body of a man she was searching for who was reported missing by his parents. The parents accuse the wife of the murder. When Nina catches up with the wife, she claims innocence, but refuses to say where she was during the time of the murder.
While investigating the case, Nina discovers other cold cases of murdered spouses all tied to Artemis Shelter for Women. Nina goes undercover in Artemis and finds herself empathizing with the occupants and their stories, because she has a story of her own which fuels her need for revenge, not conventional justice.
This book starts with two chapters that while you do not know it at the time, set up the dual plotlines intertwined through this thriller. For me, Nina was an antihero. She became a cop and lived for revenge knowing she would cross the line when she finds her target. The resolution to her personal revenge plotline was not realistic or believable. Her romance is with a loan shark, Bobby B who dropped out of the police academy which they both attended at the same time. He was useful for pivotal plot points and sex scenes, but I never felt he was fully fleshed out.
Nina’s time in Artemis was the plotline that captured my complete attention. The stories of the women and children pull you in as they did Nina herself. Nina’s empathy for the women leaves her with an ethical dilemma; reveal Artemis’ true mission or not.
I found this to be a gritty, fast paced, revenge thriller story that is more escapism that realism, but it did entertain me.
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About the Author
Michael Elias is an award-winning writer, actor and director who has written film, television, theatre and fiction.
His upcoming novel, You Can Go Home Now, is a timely and addictive psychological thriller featuring a female cop on the hunt for a killer while battling violent secrets of her own. The book will be published by HarperCollins in the U.S. and by Editions du Masque in France in June 2020. He is also the author of The Last Conquistador, published by Open Road Media.
Michael Elias was born and raised in upstate New York, moving to New York City after graduating from St. John’s College in Annapolis to pursue a career in acting. He was a member of the Living Theatre (The Brig) and acted at The Judson Poets Theatre, La MaMa, and Caffé Chino. Elias transitioned to Hollywood and with Frank Shaw wrote the screenplay for The Frisco Kid starring Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford, then Envoyez les Violons with Eve Babitz and began a long partnership with Rich Eustis. Together, they wrote the screenplays for Serial, Young Doctors in Love and created Head of the Class a television series for ABC, partially based on Elias’ experience as a high school teacher in New York City. Elias also worked with Steve Martin, a collaboration that included material for Martin’s comedy albums, network TV specials, and the screenplay for The Jerk.
Elias wrote and directed Showtime’s Lush Life with Forrest Whitaker and Jeff Goldblum. He was nominated for best Director at The Cable Ace Awards that year, and the TV movie has become a jazz film classic. His semi-autobiographical play about a small hotel in upstate New York was directed by Paul Mazursky, ran for four months in Los Angeles, with the LA Weekly naming The Catskill Sonata one of the best ten plays of the year.
