New Page 1

Rachel Chavez owns - and lives in - an L.A. parking garage. She's trying to stay sober and make ends meet. When she discovers a dented car with smudges of what might be blood on the fender, she learns of the hit-and-run death of an executive at InterUrban Water District. This is Chinatown in the 21st century, plus the conflicting emotions of a woman trying stay afloat and alive, the mixed motives of everyone from activists to bureaucrats, and an eclectic band of misfits who help Rachel solve the crime - from homeless fortune-teller Irene to night-shift office cleaner Goldie.

LIFEBLOOD EXCERPT

Poisoned Pen Press

ISBN 1-59058-346-9 HC $24.95

ISBN 1-59058-347-7 Lg Prnt Std Tpbk $22.95

Rachel Chavez, a tough but vulnerable recovering alcoholic, owns and lives in an apartment on the top floor of a parking garage in downtown Los Angeles. She is horrified when she discovers two unconscious young Mexican boys locked in an apparently abandoned van in the garage. She rushed them to the emergency room. Doctors declare one dead on arrival. The other, dehydrated but alive, is admitted to the hospital. But when Rachel checks back the next day, the hospital has no record of either child.

LISTEN TO THE MOCKINGBIRD EXCERPT

Poisoned Pen Press

ISBN 1-59058-348-5 Tpbk $14.95

This somewhat feminist, historical mystery/suspense novel takes place in 1861 in New Mexico Territory, where the Civil War is about to have a startling impace on a woman who calls herself Matty Summerhayes. Matty is struggling to develop a horse ranch to make enough money to return to the East. A stranger dies in her barn, a rumor of a lost gold mine on her land emerges, and soon someone is trying to run her off her ranch. When her closest friend, a one-time slave, is about to be stoned for practicing voodoo, Matty saves her by staging a dramatic public exorcism. But Matty herself is arrested for murder and with her land up for bail, she must find the real killer or lose everything. She unmasks a spy and murderer, but the celebration is cut short when an officer comes calling, intending to claim his rights to not only her land but Matty herself.

Matty is based upon two real women of the time: one was an army wife who came to New Mexico by wagon train. All I know of the other is her tombstone, which reads "She owned a ranch and held up a stagecoach."