When a rash of pranks on the city's meter maids turns deadly, Jill Smith isn't amused Two witnesses see the man drag the old woman into a canyon while brandishing a rifle. As night falls, detective Jill Smith and the Berkeley police department set up a perimeter. The canyon is a hostage negotiator's nightmare-dark, rough, and full of escape routes-and when she finally opens communication, the gunman doesn't respond. Rather than wait for dawn, Jill...

Vejay investigates the poisoning death of one of the town's most powerful citizens during its oddest annual event Though it sounds violent, Henderson's annual slugfest is less vicious than it is slimy. The regional festival honors the normally detested California banana slug with competitions to prove which slug is the biggest, fastest, or-in the event that gives the festival its notoriety-the tastiest. Rather than eat crow, the area's local politicians...

An activist's murder forces Jill to infiltrate Berkeley's psychedelic underworld A town as diverse as Berkeley, California, is never without controversy. This year the uproar is over the Rainbow Village, a hippie-occupied bayside lot that has degenerated into a drug-infested cesspool. As the city tries to eject the squatters, two Grateful Dead fans are murdered and a developer is assaulted. But for homicide detective Jill Smith, the conflict at the...

Three years after a hit-and-run, Kiernan searches the sea for the missing suspect As Robin Matucci sails under the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Pacific, the sea is calm and her deckhand, Carlos, is sober. By the next day, the sky is black and Carlos is passed out drunk. The waves crest higher as Robin fights to reach land, until they finally overwhelm her small ship. Fire springs up from the engine room, and the tiny craft goes to the bottom of...

When a young gymnast dies performing a world-famous stunt, Kiernan suspects foul play As a young girl in Baltimore, Kiernan O'Shaughnessy lived for gymnastics, where strict discipline and endless practice kept her centered even as her life fell apart. Her idol was stuntman Greg Gaige. Famous for pulling off the moves no one else could, and for scorning safety equipment, Gaige was the one man O'Shaughnessy truly admired.   Ten years after Gaige's...