Bøger af Mar Preston

Santa Monica, California, is home to the homeless, a city of haves and have nots, ripe for dirty politicians, psychopathic homeowners, car thieves, and celebrity troublemakers. A vicious carjacking maims a firefighter that Homicide Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department used to tomcat around with. Carjackers up the stakes when a hit-and-run linked to them leads Mason to an elite private high school where a boiling controversy is already erupting over financial shenanigans. A hit-and-run fatality of the school's administrator leads Mason to take a very close look at student activities and fundraising practices at the very private school. What he finds ties together some seeming coincidences that make this story much bigger than the puzzling violent deaths. The investigation suggests the school's director likes bad boys and dark, hidden places. On sketchy evidence, Mason needs to convince the brass that funds from the embezzlement are filtering into an international theft operation. Everything changes when Ginger, the love of Mason's life--and the school's fundraiser-- disappears. Fourth in the Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department series

Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department ignites a firestorm of controversy when a beautiful young girl from a rich Muslim family is found dead in a car arson fire. Mason is outraged to have to fight his own department, the community, and his skeptical girlfriend who push toward labeling this as a hate crime, or even domestic abuse, when he knows the answer lies in the girl's silent family. Joseph Wambaugh fans will enjoy this behind the scenes look at a police department in a liberal city which cannot accept that an honor killing has come to the glitzy shores of upscale, tourist-destination Santa Monica.

Billions of dollars in potential casino profits can turn the nicest people ugly. Even in an upscale beach city like Santa Monica A gaming goliath is steamrolling local opposition and build a glitzy high-rise casino on the shoreline. A real whodunit confronts Santa Monica Police Department homicide detective Dave Mason when a crucial city councilwoman is murdered on the eve of the vote bringing the casino one step closer. The dance between politics, money, and big ideas that change the landscape draw Mason in, taking his attention away from his daughter's bullying, and his impending divorce. He struggles against his attraction toward the witness, the community organizer leader of the oppposition campaign. She must prove her innocence in a murder she didn't commit. She must also live with the knowledge that the real killer--probably someone she knows--is hunting her. Mason struggles to keep his mind on this baffling case with way too many suspects with no alibis, while his own life unravels, and the activist he's trying to protect keeps interfering, embarrassing him by turning up legitimate leads of her own. The focus of the investigation lands on the money people: real estate developers, PR flacks, the hotels, the politicians and their dark shenanigans. An explosive secret boils up from Santa Monica's seamy past that the casino interests cannot suppress.

High-tech burglary and murder are bad for business in the upscale, tourist-destination beach city of Santa Monica with its leftist politics, rich homeowners, and huge homeless population. Bad for Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department. A deadbeat burglar has been found in the upscale Santa Monica beach condo of a playboy studio exec. The dead body must link up with a string of high-tech burglaries, and the Chechens Mason keeps meeting must link up with each other somehow, but how? The investigation leads Mason down mean streets into the dark world of embezzlement and an explosion that almost kills him. The stakes rise as the investigation send Mason to the Hollywood Russian community where he is warned off by the FBI and Homeland Security. A bungled take down results in two murders of key informants. Fingers are pointed. Mason is outranked and the Department blamed. While Mason brings an international whodunit to an end, restoring his own and the Department's reputation, he finds his relationship with his community activist girlfriend teetering on the edge.

A forest fire burning in the mountains surrounding a remote California village interrupts the Oktoberfest celebration, followed by the discovery of the mayor who has been beheaded. Sheriff's Detective Dex Stafford concludes everybody hated the mayor for different and very good reasons, but nobody will talk. His nerves fraying, Stafford finds himself involved with his partner's hysterical daughter, at a time when he fears his partner is on the take. His mother moves in with him, bringing a Jack Russell who hates him, and stories about his father he doesn't want to hear. Patrol Officer Holly Seabright of the village's security force becomes a prickly ally in uncovering the hints and whispers of something much worse than the murder of the mayor. Stafford pools resources with the attractive and smart patrol officer on a twisted trail of discovery as winter and the big snows shut down the town. A killer beyond his imagining haunts the town. Sometime soon, unless he can stop it, there will be another death, and then still another.

"Humorous police procedural with a touch of romance and biting social criticism of small town life in a remote California mountain village." Caution: Cats yes, cozy no.Murder in a cat rescue sanctuary splinters animal lovers and animal haters in a serene California mountain village. A village patrol officer, and animal activist, intrudes herself in the investigation to clear the name of the founder, a heroine among the animal rescue community. Hotshot homicide investigator, Dex Stafford, battles a cat allergy and a dislike for a place without a Starbucks-or even streetlights. She does barking dogs. He does murder. An unlikely alliance: a murder cop from Bakersfield and a village patrol officer whose usual day is calls about snakes, fistfights, barking dogs and checking up on old people. That's the way she likes it. And she doesn't like the Bakersfield city slicker cop.The second novel in Sierra Mountain Village furthers the story in a semi-hardboiled series with more odd human relationships than explosions and car chases.Told with humor and a sharp observation of village life, the reader follows an unlikely pair of investigators in a prickly alliance through a case with a disturbing psychological twist.