Book excerpt: All three books in Ed Duncan's 'Pigeon-Blood Red', a series of crime thrillers, now available in one volume! Pigeon-Blood Red: For underworld enforcer Rico Sanders, it seemed like an ordinary job: retrieve his boss's ruby necklace and teach the double-dealing cheat who stole it a lesson. But after the chase goes sideways, Rico has to move from the mean streets of Chicago to sunny Honolulu. There, the hardened hit man finds himself in uncharted territory, when innocent bystanders are embroiled in a crime. As Rico pursues his targets, hunter and prey develop an unlikely respect for one another, and Rico is faced with a decision: kill the couple whose courage has won his admiration, or endanger the life of the woman he loves? The Last Straw: After a carjacking goes bad, a teenage girl is marked for death by a crime boss. A black lawyer and a white enforcer with an unlikely history forge an alliance to protect the girl from a hit man with an agenda of his own. After they find out that the crime boss is the father of carjacker, Paul Elliott - lawyer and close friend of the witness’s family - begins counseling them. As the long-simmering feud between Rico and John D'Angelo reaches boiling point, bodies start to pile up - and old scores will be settled. Rico Stays: After Rico Sanders steps in to protect his girlfriend from a local mob boss’s nephew, all hell breaks loose. When the smoke clears, three goons lay dying where they’d stood. Fighting for his life, Rico needs a place to crash – a place where he wouldn’t be found. A place like the cabin owned by lawyer Paul Elliott, whose life Rico had saved more than once. But Paul’s girlfriend hasn't forgotten Rico’s dark history - or Paul’s fascination with him. Vengeful killers would soon be coming for him. But is he ready to face them one more time?