Haftmann's Rules

“I’ve become a big fan of Robb White’s Haftmann private eye novels. He’s a two-fisted gumshoe walking those mean street sin the best tradition of the genre..”
- H.L. Osterman, Walter the Weirdo Solves a Murder, Short Changed

It was another kiddie hunt. Ex-cop Thomas Haftmann is a private investigator in the resort town of Jefferson-on-the-Lake. What do you want me to do?” he asked the man sitting across the desk from him. “I want you to find her and bring her home,” he replied.” Hauptmann countered “I have to ask this, you understand. What if she’s dead?” The answer: “Then tell me where she’s buried so I can bring her home.” Thus Hauptmann faces another case, another venture into that dark world of murder and madness.

Robb White lives in Northeastern Ohio close to the house where he grew up. Many of his crime stories feature private investigator Thomas Haftmann, the protagonist of two earlier novels: Haftmann’s Rules (2011) and Saraband for a Runaway (2013). A third novel, When You Run with Wolves, was published in 2015. He has a collection of short stories titled Out of Breath and Other Stories (2013) that mixes mainstream and crime fiction. Until he retired from college teaching this year, White wrote book reviews and conducted interviews for the print magazine Boxing World. His short story “Frotteur in the Dark” was selected by the editors of 10,000 Tons of Black Ink as one of 6 Best Of for 2009.