Joe Ryker is the protagonist in a series of thriller novels by American author Nelson DeMille. Detective Sgt. Joe Ryker is a regular guy who works for the New York Police Department. Ryker is very much in-tune with his surroundings and this gives him the edge in being able to track down criminals. He works alone, with his only partners being his standard police special .38 on his ankle and a .357 Magnum on his shoulder.
Nelson DeMille began his Joe Ryker series in 1974 with the novel The Sniper. The series lasted six novels, concluding in 1975 with the novel The Night of the Phoenix.
As sirens wail in the heat of a city night, an over-burdened police department is up against a crime wave that’s spreading like blood from an open wound. Joe Ryker is a cop from the old school. Homicide is his job. Murder is his life. He’s one man with a rifle, choosing his victims at(…)
A man in monk’s robes is butchering women to cleanse the world of witches. And Sgt. Joe Ryker’s committing every sin in the book to cleanse New York of killers.Beneath the wealth, the squalor and the hustle of Manhattan, a string of sickening murders has opened the door on a secret world of pagan worship(…)
Someone is slipping hot-shots–strychnine-laced heroin–to New York’s hookers. Sgt. Joe Ryker couldn’t care less, but the corpses are starting to litter his beat.When the brass teams him up with a beautiful detective and a cop posing as her pimp, Ryker’s just along for the ride–until one of his partners ends up dead. Suddenly the big-fisted(…)