Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match" where we introduce you to authors you may fall in love with. It's our great pleasure to present Rob Phillips!
Writes:
I’m an Emmy-winning sportswriter-turned-mystery-author, and my debut STAKEOUTS AND STROLLERS won the Minotaur Books/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Award. It’s about a new girl dad/unemployed crime reporter who tries his hand as a PI and watches his first case spiral from mundane to deadly when he agrees to track down a teenage girl’s rotten missing father.
About:
Like my protagonist Charlie Shaw, my car is a relic with a worn-out CD player, and I prefer tea to coffee when I need a caffeine punch. My happy places are audiobook walks and football-on-the-couch Sundays after working in the National Football League for nearly twenty years. My wife and I live in Dallas with our young daughter, the inspiration for this book. Readers can connect with me at my website, robphillipswrites.com, and on Instagram and Facebook.
My ideal reader:
• loves an amateur detective story that’s equal parts mystery, thriller, comedy
• enjoys a cozy with a little edge to it
• appreciates snappy dialogue from well-drawn characters
• can relate to new-parent angst
• snacks on Raisinets (a stakeout staple)
What to expect if we’re compatible:
Some unforgettable summer sleuthing along the Bay Area coast in the Shaw family’s classic Ford Bronco.
Narrator: Dan Bittner
Amateur private investigator and new dad Charlie Shaw gets more than he bargained for when he agrees to track down a young girl’s missing father in Rob Phillips' 2024 Minotaur Books/Malice Domestic Best First Mystery Novel award-winning debut.
Charlie Shaw is low on sleep. And cash. Otherwise, life is going pretty well for the ex-crime reporter: he’s happily married to his college sweetheart, he’s a first-time dad to the most adorable baby girl in existence, and he’s making ends meet as a rookie PI. But when Charlie meets Friday Finley, a frightened sixteen-year-old runaway on a stakeout-gone- wrong, his world gets a little more complicated.
Friday is looking for her estranged father Shawn, an unreliable alcoholic who left when she was young—and who also happens to be her only shot at avoiding the foster care system since her mother’s death a few weeks earlier. At first, Charlie believes the man is simply hiding out somewhere, avoiding his responsibilities as usual, but the more he investigates, the more unsettling—and dangerous—Shawn’s disappearance becomes. When his own family is threatened, Charlie realizes he’s in over his head, but can he back out now that he’s begun to care for Friday as his own?
A perfect page- turning blend of humor and high stakes, Stakeouts and Strollers is a heartwarming story of fatherhood, family, and what it really means to be a “Girl Dad.”
Mystery Private Eye | Mystery Cozy [ Minotaur Books, On Sale: March 17, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9781250385871 / eISBN: 9781250385888 ]
ROB PHILLIPS grew up in the Dallas area, where he became an Emmy-winning sportswriter covering the Dallas Cowboys for print, radio and television. Rob and his wife are proud parents to a spunky senior King Charles spaniel and a lively young daughter, who’s still waiting for her first stakeout. His debut novel, Stakeouts and Strollers, won the Minotaur Books/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Award.
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