Portland’s proletariat lives on the valley floor hemmed in by the Cascade and Coast Ranges. Over the neighbors’ rooflines or through the branches of the thirty-foot fir trees, you can see a thin strip of sky. The people with money climb up off the floor and get themselves a view. And the highest, best view in the city is at the top of an extinct lava cone called Council Crest. The Pike home was one of several old houses strung out like a necklace along the cliffs.
-—A Bitch Called Hope
A Bitch Called Hope is the poker term for drawing the queen-eight in Texas Hold ‘Em. There’s not enough luck in the world to build a winning hand with those cards, but some folks just have to try.
Meet Lennox Cooper. She’s a smart poker player, a smart detective, but when it comes to good judgment, she can be a real dope. A year ago her affair with a married cop got her fired from the Portland Police. Now she’s trying to build a new life as a private detective.
The murder of a wealthy developer gives her a chance to reestablish herself as a homicide detective. During the course of the investigation she meets Mr. Right. The only problem is he’s one on a short list of murder suspects. Lennox bets on her lover’s innocence. The odds are much better than A Bitch Called Hope.
Published by Diversion Books. Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or order at your favorite bookstore.
When you’re lonely, you’re more likely to take risks and make mistakes. Sure, everyone knows that people pretend online. Like people don’t pretend in real life? Take Frank. Lennox operated under the assumption that Frank was a decent, sweet guy. But he could have a wife and family somewhere. She could find out a year from now that he was an embezzler. Anytime you take a chance on someone new, you’re betting blind. It didn’t matter whether it was online or face-to-face.
-—Betting Blind
PI Lennox Cooper finds an AWOL parolee in what looks like a sex game gone terribly wrong. Lennox’s friend, Fulin Chen, is the dead woman’s parole officer, and becomes the lead suspect. He confesses to Lennox that the murder victim was blackmailing him with dirty pictures she had of him.
A former cop, Lennox knows how it feels to live and breathe the police life—and to be thrown out of it. She’ll do anything to help her friend avoid a similar fate. The murder victim had no shortage of enemies. Lennox will have to sift through the victim’s many blackmail victims and jilted lovers to find the real killer.
Published by Diversion Books. Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble , or order from your local bookstore.
Was Lennox supposed to invite the Nazi canine into her house? She had zero experience with dogs, or any pets for that matter. And now this creature was shedding hair on her porch.
The dog followed him into the living room, its claws clicking like dice on Lennox’s hardwood floor. He sat down on the sofa. The dog flopped on the rug by his feet. Smiling, he scratched the dog behind its ears. The animal was bigger than Lennox’s mother and smelled.
“Gretchen’s better than any security system. Aren’t you girl?” he said in a peculiar sing-song voice. You won’t let the bad guys hurt this little gal?”
“Little gal?” Lennox leaned forward in her chair.
A deep grumble rose from the Nazi’s throat.
——All In
Flinty ex-cop, poker playing, private detective Lennox Cooper stands alone in championing Tomek Jagoda, darling son of a Portland crime family, accused of murdering his high-living girlfriend.
The cops have proof that will send Tomek to prison for life. Prosecuting the case is a Viking goddess of a woman, as smart as she is stunning, who draws everyone’s adoration. Lennox is used to being the cute woman in the room, but next to the prosector, she feels like a garden gnome. If that wasn’t annoying enough, her boss and Tomek’s defense attorney, is ready to throw Tomek under the bus in a plea deal that carries a ten-year sentence just so he can court the prosecutor.
What is it about Tomek—big as a tool shed and twice as dumb— that convinces Lennox of his innocence?
As Lennox unwinds all the lies surrounding the case, she sees deeper into Tomek’s humanity and into hers as well. She realizes that she’s in love with her boss who’s in lust with the prosecutor. Lennox bets her job, her love, and her own safety to find the killer.
She’s all in.
Published by Diversion Books. Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or order at your local bookstore.