The Zephyr speeds across the West, Death deals the cards It's April 1953, and Zephyrette Jill McLeod is back on the rails, aboard the fabled train called the California Zephyr. Heading west from Chicago to the San Francisco Bay Area, Jill looks forward to reuniting with family members and the new man in her life. She's learned to expect and deal with just about anything on the train, from troublesome passengers to long-lost relatives to high-stakes poker games. But the stakes just got even higher: Death has a seat at the table.

Delightful. In flashbacks, Dawson does a fine job bringing WWII-era Los Angeles to life. Publishers Weekly (2/28/11)What now remains of Hollywood's Golden Era? A wealth of publicity materials was distributed nationwide to theaters, but they were usually treated as rubbish and disposed of when each movie finished its run. However, a surprising number of posters, still production photos, lobby cards, inserts, title cards, and the like have survived, and some of these memorabilia are of enormous value to collectors. Like any objects of value, these occasionally motivate crimes sometimes even murder.PI Jeri Howard scours Northern California from the Bay Area to Sonoma County to the Eastern Sierra, trying to connect events of sixty years ago with the murder of a prominent arts patron and avid collector of Hitchcock memorabilia and learns a lot about her grandmother' s years as a bit player in Hollywood along the way. With frequent flashbacks to the late 1930s and early 40s,...

"Exciting.... Dawson keeps the suspense high as Jeri seeks to find her brother before it's too late." —Publishers Weekly Oakland PI Jeri Howard tackles her most personal case yet. Her brother, Brian, has disappeared and has been missing for four days before she is notified. The trail is getting colder as the anxious PI searches for Brian across Sonoma County for clues to explain why he disappeared. She'd thought Brian's life was in great shape. But her investigation uncovers cracks in his marriage and problems with his job. To complicate matters, there's a body on a boat along with Brian's MedicAlert bracelet, and two police detectives who think Brian is involved in the homicide. Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking....

A Jeri Howard Mystery

History professor Lindsey Page has a quiet, well-ordered life, but it's about to get complicated. Her daughter, with whom she has a troubled relationship, shows up on her doorstep. The immigrant woman Lindsey is interviewing for a book asks her for help in reclaiming the son taken from her during a massacre in her Salvadoran village. And her closest friends, from college days at Berkeley, where they witnessed the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, are hiding secrets that will forever change those friendships. Lindsey must grapple with questions of family identity, truth in wartime, the ethics of power for robber barons and the law of unforeseen consequences. Moving back and forth from the 1970s to the present, from the Bay Area to El Salvador, this sprawling saga follows Lindsey, her friends, and family through tumultuous political, social, and cultural changes and choices.

A Jeri Howard Mystery

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