I never imagined when my husband and I wrote this book that it would be the first in a series about the life and career of a strong and sympathetic female homicide detective from Orange County, California. "The Tustin Chronicles" starts with her as a child when her father is murdered. When she turns 18, she starts looking into the court records about his murder and begins to think that the wrong person was convicted. In the process, she also continues her search for her mother, who abandoned her.
The search for family is the common thread that holds together all four of the Detective Santy Mysteries. My husband is still upset at me for how I ended the last book, "The Body on Ortega Highway". He doesn't like what happened to her, but I think that it rings true for the arc of story. You'll have to check it out yourself and see if you agree.
The books are written as stand-alone stories and our readers don't need to read all four of the books to know what's going on. Here is a brief description of the three other books:
In this murder/mystery, the peaceful world of a monastery in Orange County, California is shaken to its core when one of its priests is murdered. Who would want to kill him? Tempers have been running high in Silverado Canyon ever since the abbey purchased land to expand its property. Detective Clarissa Santy is trying to solve the murder, while at the same time, she’s busy reintroducing her father to the world outside of prison, where he’s spent the past 30 years for a murder conviction. Between keeping him out of trouble, babysitting a Criminal Justice Intern from UCI, and dating again after losing her husband several years ago, her life has never seemed so complicated.
While on her honeymoon in Savannah, Georgia, Detective Clarissa Santy hopes to spend a nice quiet time with her husband in one of America’s most beautiful cities. She and her husband are both big fans of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, so they decide to make a pilgrimage to Savannah to see the sights mentioned in the book. Her time as a tourist is short-lived however when one of Savannah’s famous chefs is brutally murdered. The chef just happens to be Clarissa’s cousin--so this is personal--and Clarissa can’t rest until she finds out whodunit. This book has something for everybody: it’s part murder/mystery; part travelogue; part romance novel; and even includes a search for a buried treasure.
This psychological thriller about sexual obsession will keep you on the edge of your seats until the very end. It's a riveting murder mystery about a female homicide detective who investigates the brutal murder of two teenage girls on a rural road in Orange County, California. In the course of the investigation, she begins to wonder if the serial killer is the same person who has been making upsetting phone calls to her. She begins to suspect that not only does she know him: she used to be in love with him. How much danger must she be willing to put herself into in order to capture him? Based on real events.
These titles are available at most online bookstore, including Amazon.
Click the hyperlink for each book title in this blogpost to purchase directly at Amazon.com
