Stalking the Scratch Man


Book Description

Hired to figure out whether his client’s husband, Ray, has been sleepwalking or just faking it, Truman pulls his best friend, Celeste, into the mystery. The duo digs deep—rifling medical files, running late-night stakeouts, stalking witnesses in bars—to find there’s more to it than Ray’s secretive trips to Chinatown and his habit of macking on women. Truman tries to stay objective with his new crush, Larry, not sure how much he knows about the boss’s lowlife activities, while Celeste contends with her own man troubles in the stalwart but suspicious Alejo. Celeste uses her stealthy instincts to interview the players without showing her hand as Truman, relying on his 1930s-era detective handbook, delves into the dark side of the import business. Join the bar-hopping, booze-swilling duo as their digging pushes things right to the edge, where Truman and Celeste have to figure out whether to do what’s easy or do what’s right.




The Margarita Solution


Book Description

Sometimes all a woman needs is a decent man—even if she’s not sleeping with him. For Celeste, her longtime friend Truman fills some of the gaps, leaving her the luxury of being choosier in her romantic pursuits. Truman has his own issues chasing guys, in his perpetual quest for the right man, and the pair of them manage not to get jealous when they target the same ones. In this first novel in the Truman and Celeste series, Truman stumbles into a detective gig while trying to imbibe a margarita, and soon finds himself hunting for a guy named Jaime in a rough neighborhood, getting embroiled with a series of increasingly troublesome lowlifes, none of whom ever seem to tell him the truth. Drawn into the mystery, Celeste works her contacts in the art world and meets a guy who’s all sweet chocolate on the surface but has some toxic secrets underneath, all the while helping Truman avoid his more boneheaded instincts in his research and working up some job prospects for herself. Join Truman and Celeste as they troll the gritty underbelly of Los Angeles, never hesitating to slam that cocktail, hit on guys, or ask the next relevant question.




The Stalking Man


Book Description

In a twisted trail of blood, he spelled out his name, The Stalking Man, hunting women in cities across the country the way his father had once taught him to hunt deer. He loved the moment of terror frozen on their faces when the all-too-horrifying realization would hit them-they were going to die a death more violent and ghastly than their worst nightmares... They had caught him once-he did his time and now he was "cured." But he'd been sloppy then. This time he slithered through the country, striking with cunning and precision, laughing at the law as he outran them again and again. Now two men must piece together his macabre clues and stop a sadistic killer who's about to strike too close to home...




The Tenacious Goldbrick


Book Description

When a stranger jumps into Celeste’s car and begs her to help him escape his pursuer, she decides to help him out. Drawn into the mystery, Truman tries to help Rolán recover some compromising evidence that his former boss, Davo, is using to blackmail him. Davo turns out to be more than a penny-ante local crook, with an expensive secret and shadowy connections overseas. Working undercover, Celeste collaborates with Mariam, Davo’s wife, on a design project, and gradually gets more entangled with her when Mariam asks for her help navigating LA’s art world. Things come to a head in a cluttered self-storage unit when Truman and Celeste uncover the truth about Rolán and learn what Davo is really up to. The feds intercede when the pair get ensnared in their surveillance of the players. Celeste has to decide whether her feelings for their goldbrick client are eclipsed by his bad behavior, while Truman blithely hits on the G-man and hooks up with one of the tangential lowlifes. Join the bar-hopping, booze-swilling duo as their digging pushes things right to the edge, where Truman and Celeste have to figure out whether to do what’s easy or do what’s right.




Chiseler with a Glass Jaw


Book Description

Never one to let a bully get away with harassing someone, Celeste intervenes with a knockout punch, and in the melee Truman winds up in possession of the bully’s cell phone. Through Truman’s inventive online stalking and Celeste tracking down the victim, they uncover a seedy nest of grifters bent on profiting from human misery. Truman gets involved with Isaac, a closeted lawyer with a quick temper, but how does he fit into the scam? Running down leads at hotel bars, hip boutiques, and a grimy body shop, Truman and Celeste go all in, posing undercover at a night club as wealthy airheads and getting intimate with the lowlifes to disrupt their insidious con game. Join the bar-hopping, booze-swilling duo as Celeste sets the ultimate trap at her art gallery, and Truman is forced to decide how far he’s willing to go for justice. In this second book in the series, Celeste finds that longtime friend Truman fills some of the gaps in companionship, leaving her the luxury of being choosier in her romantic pursuits. Truman has his own issues chasing guys, in his perpetual quest for the right man, and the pair of them manage not to get jealous when they target the same ones.




Standing at the Scratch Line


Book Description

Raised in the steamy bayous of New Orleans in the early 1900s, LeRoi "King" Tremain, caught up in his family's ongoing feud with the rival DuMont family, learns to fight. But when the teenage King mistakenly kills two white deputies during a botched raid on the DuMonts, the Tremains' fear of reprisal forces King to flee Louisiana. King thus embarks on an adventure that first takes him to France, where he fights in World War I as a member of the segregated 369th Battalion—in the bigoted army he finds himself locked in combat with American soldiers as well as with Germans. When he returns to America, he battles the Mob in Jazz Age Harlem, the KKK in Louisiana, and crooked politicians trying to destroy a black township in Oklahoma. King Tremain is driven by two principal forces: He wants to be treated with respect, and he wants to create a family dynasty much like the one he left behind in Louisiana. This is a stunning debut by novelist Guy Johnson that provides a true depiction of the lives of African-Americans in the early decades of the twentieth century.




When the Contralto Sings


Book Description

When Celeste runs into Angel, one of the city’s growing homeless population, in front of Truman’s building, she invites them to a street festival in Gladys Park. Angel proves to be a talented contralto at the event, and Truman meets Dyson, an outreach worker who hires him to track down some seemingly valueless stolen property. Truman’s instincts and his 1930s-era detective handbook lead him to more questions, and he’s confronted with the fact that the guy he’s crushing on may be playing him. As they dig deeper, Celeste goes undercover in a developer’s office, where she turns the head of Flint, the wealthy family’s scion. Truman follows the clues in an old book about flying saucers, traveling around Los Angeles and subsequently uncovering local government corruption and a nest of old-time white supremacists. Join the bar-hopping, booze-swilling duo as Celeste has to decide whether Flint’s social status is compatible with her worldview, Truman confronts the paranoia of conspiracy theorists, and the pair enlist their new Skid Row friend to join the battle against corruption.




Cryptic Paisley


Book Description

When gallerist Celeste meets an old friend at an art show, the artist explains that someone has jacked one of her fashion designs, and soon Celeste’s bestie, Truman, is on the case, diving headlong into LA’s fashion industry to investigate. Truman and Celeste soon get entangled with a hinky company run by a trio of enigmatic lowlifes who produce a very unusual fashion line. Are they full-on grifters, or just not that competent? Truman goes undercover with an industry supplier, and Celeste agrees to work for the trashy fashion folks, digging deeper into their secrets and getting way too close to the blustery Flavio and his cryptocurrency scheme. As Truman tracks down other victims of the fashion scam, he finds himself drawn to a talented swimwear designer. In this installment of the Truman and Celeste books, the duo uses their smarts and cunning to confront the crooks head-on, never hesitating to ask the next relevant question or to slam that cocktail.




No Ordinary Stalking


Book Description

Organized stalking is carried out by an enthusiastic and structured group that has cruel intentions: stalk, harass, injure, financially ruin, and mentally crumple human prey until incapacitation occurs. What sets this crime apart is that innocents are picked off the street. There is no getting away from the stalkers and no getting away from the unusual technology that is used to take over someone’s life. “For the first couple of months,” says June, “I thought it was a sick game. Now that I’ve been tormented for years, well, it’s clear that organized stalking is a sophisticated crime that follows a step-by-step process to leave the victim as bare and isolated as the dead tree on the cover. He or she may still be standing, but that’s about it. “I’ll sum it up this way. Veiled intimidation ensures that targeted individuals are viewed by the public as free people, which they are not. They are playthings to their controllers. Hostages in plain sight. Victims are quite literally owned yet have limited chance of rescue because their desperate circumstances are misunderstood. Some die from the violence. Some die from suicide. And the rest merely exist.” Organized stalking is worldwide and is called gang stalking in some areas. The electronic harassment that accompanies organized stalking is also known as covert harassment.




The Seabrooks


Book Description

"The Seabrooks" is the first book in a three-part saga that I am writing. This three-part saga chronicles and depicts the Seabrook family as they struggle to maintain their position of neutrality in the Revolutionary War. The entire family, which consists of Betty, Henry, and John, is convicted to their well-entrenched views toward the war; that is that they wish for the war to end as quickly and peacefully as possible, and with the least amount of bloodshed and property damage as possible. And most important of all, they want to stay completely out of the entire affair. But they are tested by loyalists and patriots alike, and they have to resist temptations, pressures, and other factors that attempt to sway their opinions and ideologies. That is to say, both loyalists (as well as the British) and patriots want the neutralists to join their side because they both knew that it was the neutralists that held the balance of power, and thus, they held the key to victory. The Seabrooks are subjected to a series of events that test the integrity of their neutrality and their resolve to stay neutral. But eventually, a very significant event impacts the entire family and causes them to reassess their ideologies and political views in regards to the war. The saga focuses on the life of John Seabrook, who is the only son and child of Henry and Betty Seabrook. They are a strong and morally upright family, and they portray a typical and traditional family that was common during the Revolutionary War era. They are members of the roughly one third of the colonial Americans who wished to remain neutral in the war. These "neutralists," as I call them, took on a political view that emphasized not only staying uninvolved throughout the war, but they also desired a swift, bloodless, and peaceful resolution to the conflict; perhaps nowadays, one might refer to them as "pacifists."




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