Wayne Zurl

Author Information
Wayne Zurl's Latest Book

Newest Release

  • Bibliography:
    36 Books (1 Series)
  • First Book:
    November 2009
  • Latest Book:
    April 2020
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Full Series List in Order

A Sam Jenkins Mystery

A Leprechaun's Lament (Mar-2012)
A Murder in Knoxville and Other Smoky Mountain Mysteries (May-2012)
Reenacting a Murder and Other Smoky Mountain Mysteries (May-2012)
Heroes & Lovers (Aug-2012)

Book List in Order: 36 titles

  • A Labor Day Murder

    Chief Sam Jenkins learns of an illegal card game and the sale of moonshine at the Iron Skillet restaurant and decides to raid the premises. Police confiscate untaxed liquor, cash proceeds, and a revolver. That looked straight forward until a firearms...

  • A Murder in Knoxville

    Sam Jenkins is the new police chief in town and everyone wonders, will Prospect, Tennessee ever be the same? A Labor Day Murder and A Murder In Knoxville take the reader into the world of domestic violence with a smattering of political corruption. I...

  • Bullets Off-Broadway

    Prospect City Councilman Danny Swope had two bad habits. He drank too much and he beat his wife. Throw in an overbearing personality, and Police Chief Sam Jenkins isn't surprised when Danny is found shot to death. Jenkins' investigation takes him int...

  • Scrap Metal & Murder

    Building contractor, Scott Beets, seeks help in catching the person responsible for stealing the copper wire and pipes he uses for home construction. Police Chief Sam Jenkins finds the thief, but shortly after the burglar is released on bail, the com...

  • By the Horns of a Cow

    A fourteen-foot-tall statue of a cow is stolen from a market in Prospect, Tennessee. Police Chief Sam Jenkins enlists the help of his friend, a TV reporter, who broadcasts an appeal for help. With the laughs and giggles that inquiries bring regarding...

  • A New Prospect

    Sam Jenkins never thought about being a fish out of water during the twenty years he spent solving crimes in New York. But things change, and after retiring to Tennessee, he gets that feeling. Jenkins becomes a cop again and is thrown headlong into a...

  • Serpents & Scoundrels

    A past informant leads Chief Sam Jenkins and Sergeant Stan Rose to a partially buried corpse in a forest clearing once used by marijuana growers. At the crime scene, the medical examiner states a fact and makes a conjecture -- the dead man was killed...

  • Murder in a Wish-Book House

    Chief Sam Jenkins investigates the murder of a Tennessee school teacher. All the facts point to a simple conclusion, the man's wife, an escaped mental patient, killed her husband to gain custody of their small daughter. With the help of his usual cad...

  • V is for... Vitamin?

    While in the middle of an armed robbery arrest at a nursing home, Sam gets a call from his wife, Kate, a volunteer at the same location’s assisted living facility, saying there is a problem. Wallace Cumberbatch was found dead in his room. The atten...



  • Fate of a Floozy

    Sam Jenkins investigates the shotgun murders of an aging movie star and the younger man with whom she was having an affair. Two of the suspects include the woman’s husband, a Hollywood producer, and the young man’s father, a high-powered attorney...

  • Reenacting a Murder

  • A Leprechaun's Lament

    A Sam Jenkins Mystery

    A stipulation of the Patriot Act gave Chief Sam Jenkins an easy job; investigate all the civilians working for the Prospect Police Department. But what looked like a routine chore to the gritty ex-New York detective, turned into a nightmare. Prelimin...

  • A Murder in Knoxville and Other Smoky Mountain Mysteries

    A Sam Jenkins Mystery

    A MURDER IN KNOXVILLE and Other Smoky Mountain Mysteries . . . contains five Sam Jenkins mystery novelettes, approximately 10,000 words each.
    A LABOR DAY MURDER
    BY THE HORNS OF A COW
    SERPENTS & SCOUNDRELS
    MURDER IN A WISH-BOOK HOUSE
    a...

  • Reenacting a Murder and Other Smoky Mountain Mysteries

    A Sam Jenkins Mystery

    REENACTING A MURDER and More Smoky Mountain Mysteries . . . contains five Sam Jenkins mystery novelettes, approximately 10,000 words each.
    BULLETS OFF-BROADWAY
    SCRAP METAL & MURDER
    V IS FOR . . . VITAMIN?
    REENACTING A MURDER
    and the ...

  • The Great Smoky Mountain Bank Job

    When your high school classmate shows up on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, can your police career get any more interesting? Prospect, Tennessee's police chief Sam Jenkins handles a cold case robbery-homicide as a favor to a beautiful treasury agent ...

  • Heroes & Lovers

    A Sam Jenkins Mystery

    During the early stages of a fraud investigation, Sam elicits the aid of Katherine and Rachel in a sting operation that goes totally wrong. Sam develops several promising leads, but as they begin to fizzle, his prime suspect drops off the planet and ...

  • Hurricane Blow Up

    Hurricane Irene caused thousands of coastal residents to flee inland and escape the storm’s carnage. Two of them ended up in the Smoky Mountain tourist town of Prospect, Tennessee. And then their car blew up. The bomb expert said they were the targ...

  • The Butlers Did It

    Things started out innocently enough. Sam Jenkins and Bettye Lambert used a little police department time to go Christmas shopping. When three gunmen robbed the Prospect Citizen’s Bank and Trust across the street from where they sat in a parked car...

  • Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves

    Gypsy con artists roll through Prospect, Tennessee and inveigle an expensive boat and trailer from Chief Sam Jenkins’ friend. Three days later, one of the thieves is found beaten to death in the boatyard where the crime occurred. Did Horace Colwell...



  • Sam Jenkins Novelette Mysteries Collection 1

    This collection of published novelettes by Wayne Zurl of the popular series about Police Chief Sam Jenkins of Prospect, Tennessee. Each case presents the reader with compelling circumstance, Zurl's brand of wit and Jenkins' justice. A Labor Day Murde...

  • Heaven's Gate

    Police Chief Sam Jenkins goes undercover to buy automatic weapons and military munitions from a gun show hustler. The chief enlists assistance from an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to provide front money for the operation. But ...

  • Nothing Fitz

    An officer is murdered on the air base near Prospect, Tennessee. A sergeant is found standing over the body holding a bloody wrench, but OSI Agent Roxanne Wallace thinks the evidence against the defendant is too sketchy. She enlists help from Prospec...

  • The Swan Tattoo

    Jerome Lee, owner of the Magic Panda, a new Chinese restaurant in Prospect, suspiciously has a finger cut off. Three days later, he’s found hanging from a second floor landing in his home, a suicide note only a few feet away. But Police Chief Sam J...

  • Alvis is in the Building

    Pool huckster Alvis Seebold didn’t make any friends when he sandbagged his way into a big playoff with resident professional Tommy Crowe at Prospect’s only billiard club. When visiting pool shark Cannonball LaShott is found stabbed to death after...

  • Alvis is in the House

    Pool huckster Alvis Seebold didn't make any friends when he sandbagged his way into a big playoff with resident professional Tommy Crowe at Prospect's only billiard club. When visiting pool shark Cannonball LaShott is found stabbed to death after los...

  • Graceland on Wheels

    A collection of six crime novelettes that take you on a trip through the more off-beat regions of law enforcement. Follow Prospect, Tennessee's Police Chief Sam Jenkins as he meets Gypsy conmen and a beautiful fortune teller in GYPSIES, TRAMPS & THIE...

  • Pigeon River Blues

    Sam Jenkins thinks no good turn goes unpunished when the famous singer he's assigned to protect decides it's hate at first sight. Famous country and western singer C.J. Profitt receives death threats from a group of rightwing zealots. Chief Sam Jenki...

  • Sam Jenkins Novelette Mysteries Collection 2

    This is Collection 2 of published novelettes by Wayne Zurl of the popular series about Police Chief Sam Jenkins of Prospect, Tennessee. Each case presents the reader with compelling circumstance, Zurl’s brand of wit and Jenkins’ justice. >>V is...

  • From New York to the Smokies

    Five Sam Jenkins mysteries spanning more than four decades. From his earliest foray into law enforcement, where a young Sam and his friends foil a plot to murder a Long Island union official to the police chief's most recent investigation into the br...



  • Heroes and Lovers

    For an exciting exclusive story, Tv reporter Rachel Williamson helps Chief Sam Jenkins with a classic fraud investigation. But the case puts Rachel in jeopardy and her abduction by a mentally disturbed man, changes her life forever. After several fru...

  • A Touch of Morning Calm

    Chief Sam Jenkins runs headlong into Tennessee's faction of Korean organized crime when a mobster tries to shake down two former call girls attempting to establish a legitimate business. Soon, bodies begin piling up-all with a Korean connection-in Sa...

  • A Can of Worms

    Against his better judgment, Police Chief Sam Jenkins hires Dallas Finchum, nephew of local corrupt politicians. Now, Finchum is accused of a rape that occurred when he attended college three years earlier. The young man claims his innocence, but whi...

  • Honor Among Thieves

    What does a good cop do when his name and phone number is found in the pocket of a dead mobster from his past? Does he cooperate with the Internal Affairs investigator who wants to charge him with murder, but appears to have an ulterior motive? Does ...

  • A Bleak Prospect

    Sam Jenkins joins a combined task force hunting a serial killer called The Riverside Strangler by the local media. Complications arise when the lead investigator, the county sheriff's chief deputy is arrested and charged with police brutality. When S...

  • Sins of Eden

    A routine missing person’s case sends Sam Jenkins and John Gallagher into the world of industrial pollution, environmental activists and profuse ambiguities. Former government agents, the man’s parents and other material witnesses seem to be with...

  • Festival of Felonies

    Have You Considered Voodoo? New York Detective Sam Jenkins is handed a bizarre case that develops into the serial killing of animals. It doesn't take long to find a prime suspect, but he's a juvenile headed to no good end, but the system doesn't make...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Wayne Zurl has published 36 books.

Wayne Zurl does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Festival of Felonies, was published in April 2020.

The first book by Wayne Zurl, A Labor Day Murder, was published in November 2009.

Yes. Wayne Zurl has 1 series.
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