Don't Turn Your Back on the Ocean
by Janet Dawson
from Fawcett
"Dawson writes believable dialogue, creates quickly realized and appealing characters and has a particularly nice atmospheric touch."
--San Francisco Examiner
Beautiful Ariel Logan was last seen quarreling with her boyfriend outside a Monterey pub. Now she lies dead on a California beach. An autopsy reveals that Ariel's death is no accidental drowning, but a cold-blooded killing.
Vacationing private investigator Jeri Howard has more than professional interest in the case: Ariel's boyfriend, the prime murder suspect, is Jeri's rowdy cousin, Bobby Ravella. Despite Bobby's refusal to defend himself, Jeri believes in his innocence, and instinct tells her the murder is part of a far larger evil. To find the truth, Jeri goes fishing for a big one in deep and treacherous waters and discovers that Ariel's short life was not free from dark secrets....
"Mother/daughter feuds, family solidarity, an ecological mystery: Dawson blends these familiar ingredients with a chef's élan."
--Kirkus Reviews
A Killing at the Track (Jeri Howard Mysteries)
by Janet Dawson
from Fawcett
Investigator Jeri Howard is fascinated by the beautiful horses and the zealous spectators at stylish Edgewater Downs. But behind the scenes, where the owners, trainers, jockeys, and grooms mingle, life is not so pretty.
Someone is terrorizing owner-trainer Molly Torrance with sinister phone threats. Who would be so malicious? Jeri's money is on ambitious jockey Benita Pascal, whom Molly recently fired. But what about great horses suddenly losing races? Or the blonde Jeri spies betting a bundle on the longest of long shots? And what about . . . cold-blooded murder? For when death's dark horse hugs the rail, Jeri gallops to find a ruthless killer.
Nobody's Child: A Jeri Howard Mystery
by Janet Dawson
from Fawcett
"[A]FINELY CRAFTED, ABSORBING ADVENTURE."
--Publishers Weekly
When a decomposing body is dug up by a construction company, authorities suspect murder. Private investigator Jeri Howard's abrasive client, Naomi Smith, thinks the victim could be her daughter, Maureen, who ran away from home two years ago. Jeri dislikes her client, but she is determined to discover the identity of the dead woman and how she was killed. What worries her just as much, though, is the missing child Maureen was last seen carrying--both of them sick, broke, and sleeping among the homeless in the shadows of Berkeley's People's Park.
Posing as a homeless person, Jeri probes the darkening heart of the once-beautiful city, peering behind the lace curtains of middle-class respectability to find out why Maureen ran from home and how she ended up on the streets. In her desperate search to save a child that nobody seems to want, Jeri hits a chilling wall of suburban silence and urban distress. . . .
"A rich plum pudding of a story sprinkled throughout with memorable characters."
--The Washington Post Book World
Kindred Crimes
by Janet Dawson
from Fawcett
When P.I. Jeri Howard takes on a missing-persons case, she's not the only person confused. The vanished woman's husband doesn't even know his wife's real name. But as Jeri digs deeper, she reveals long-buried secrets, old public scandals, and the real possibility that too much knowledge is a dangerous thing...
"A welcome addition to this tough genre."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Till the Old Men Die
by Janet Dawson
from Fawcett
When Dr. Lito Manibusan, a Filipino professor of history at Cal State, is murdered, Jeri Howard's father, a colleague of the victim, hires her to find the man's next of kind and learn the truth behind his death. Jeri learns a lot, especially about old friends and political feuds, and finds herself following the twisted trail of clues that led to the man's murder....
Take a Number (A Jeri Howard Mystery)
by Janet Dawson
from Fawcett
"Intelligent and determined, Jeri holds her own among the ranks of impressive female detectives." Publishers Weekly
A Jeri Howard mystery by the author of "Till the Old Men Die."
In Alameda County, east of San Francisco, the all-American pastimes of adultery, divorce, and mindless violence prosper -- and Petty Officer First Class Sam Raynor, USN, fits right in. Private investigator Jeri Howard is working for Raynor's battered wife, who wants not only a divorce but half of everything Raynor's got. It turns out Raynor's hidden some big bucks from Uncle Sam.
And that's not all he's hidden. Barely concealed behind his blond and muscled good looks is a vicious psychopath, whose wife-battering episodes are only the tip of an ugly iceberg. It seems Petty Officer Raynor's been getting away with murder . . . or close to it. And now that Jeri is on his trail, can murder be far behind?
Where the Bodies Are Buried (Jeri Howard Mysteries)
by Janet Dawson
from Fawcett
When San Francisco P.I. Jeri Howard's new client, Rob Lawter, takes a header through his living room window soon after he's hired her, Jeri is in a quandary. Lawter, a paralegal at a food-processing firm, had received a threatening anonymous note, sent because he was about to blow the whistle on some serious corporate cover-up.
Since Jeri has already cashed the check, she feels she owes her dead, probably murdered, client his money's worth. So she goes undercover in the firm's legal department, determined to expose Lawter's killer. What Jeri finds is that murder tops this corporation's agenda, as employees pay the ultimate price to keep a deadly health scare out of the media. . . .
Scam and Eggs: Stories (Five Star First Edition Mystery Series)
by Janet Dawson
from Five Star (ME)
Witness to Evil (Jeri Howard Mysteries)
by Janet Dawson
from Ballantine Books
The atmospheric setting of San Francisco's Bay area. A no-nonsense female investigator. And an unflinching look at contemporary social issues. These are the enduring strengths of Janet Dawson's tough, entertaining detective series. Now, in Witness to Evil, she elevates P.I. Jeri Howard's adventures to new heights of suspense and surprise.
Private investigator Jeri Howard can scarcely believe that someone is actually paying her to go to Paris, even if it is only to fetch a wild teenager home. But the wanderer, eighteen-year-old Darcy, turns out to have a serious reason for her unauthorized jaunt: to visit Holocaust memorials and to meet the French family who sheltered her grandmother as a girl from the Nazis.
But back home in California, Darcy stumbles on evidence that Nazism is alive and well in the terrifying present. And Jeri has the deadly work of trying to extricate Darcy from the frightening consequences of her discovery.
Like all Janet Dawson's novels, Witness to Evil is a star in the white-knuckle sweepstakes--and a hair-raising portrait of the society we live in.
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