FAIR GAME

Bodies with bank deposit slips attached to them. A new corpse with, of all things, a parking ticket. In this first book of the series, LAPD homicide detective Jessica Drake finds a frightening pattern connecting a series of murders. The city of Los Angeles has enough troubles without this new, insane rash of killings. And Jessie has problems of her own. Her ex-husband keeps barging back into her life, and her visiting sister and nephew are starting to look like permanent house guests. When yet another body turns up on the Venice boardwalk, the playing pieces start to fall into place, and Jessie is appointed department spokesperson. She goes on TV, knowing that the diabolically clever killer is watching…counting his money, rolling the dice, and planning his next move against his last opponent - Jessie Drake.

ANGEL OF DEATH

To L.A. lawyer Barry Lewis, the note on his front door spells danger. To LAPD Detective Jessie Drake, it is as ominous as the Star of David scrawled across Lewis's paint-smeared door. Lewis, Jessie learns, is everyone's enemy. The Jewish community is inflamed when he represents neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers determined to parade in their neighborhoods on Hitler's birthday. A son of Holocaust survivors himself, Lewis despises his clients-yet vehemently defends their First Amendment rights. Then hate turns to homicide, and Jessie is forced not only to find a killer, but to face her own prejudices and feelings about the Holocaust, along with some startling revelations about her city and herself. Meanwhile, passions are rising…and the "angel of death" prepares to strike again.

BLOOD MONEY

Caring and compassionate, LAPD homicide detective Jessica Drake isn't about to write off the death of an elderly man found dead in a secluded area of Rancho Park as simply a heart attack. The nonresident guest at an old age home was in vigorous health, with plenty of friends...and suddenly he's mysteriously dead. Jessie suspects foul play. In search of what caused the old gentleman's death, Jessie combs the records of local retirement homes and prods the memories of the residents. She discovers that the victim was the only person in his family to come out of the concentration camps alive - and his demise is just one of a number of mysterious deaths among camp survivors. The possible connection to the Holocaust is a particularly heart-wrenching irony to Jessie, who has just recently learned of her own link to the historic atrocity. Now she's determined to follow a twisted trail of decades-old deceit to catch a killer...and spare the survivors of the death camps from the treachery of a modern-day maniac.

DEAD AIR (review)

LAPD homicide detective Jessie Drake is astonished when her closest high school confidant, who hasn't been in touch for almost two years, shows up at her door with an alarming tale of being harassed by an unseen stalker. The friend is now "Dr. Renee," a popular radio talk show psychologist who doles out quick-fix no-nonsense advice to troubled callers on everything from lackluster marriages to steamy illicit affairs. Now Renee is desperately frightened and convinced that Jessie can help her. Skeptical, and with little to go on, Jessie agrees to investigate - just as a favor. But her interest quickly turns professional when Renee's six-year-old daughter Molly is kidnapped and the child's nanny murdered. Renee and her estranged husband Barry, already in a fierce battle over custody, trade angry charges of blame and suspicion while Jessie tracks a bizarre series of events that began a few weeks earlier when a battered wife phoned Dr. Renee for help. Now the woman's crazed husband blames the radio therapist for handing out advice that his ruined his marriage, and - on the air for all to hear - he threatens revenge. With a child as a pawn, a killer holds all the cards and he's chosen Jessie to be the LAPD's top player. As the hours tick by, he uses the radio talk show to up the ante, sending shock waves of fear and disbelief throughout the city. And under the hot glare of media scrutiny, Jessie works feverishly against the clock to beat him at his own game because she knows that a man who has killed and has nothing to lose will stop at nothing to satisfy his need for vengeance.