My First Murder

About the Book

About the Author

I've got to admit it. I'm not a successful author. Telltale Books published (paperback only) my Urgent Care,Baby only because the ER scenes seemed authentic. So I'm a private eye, self-promoted from security guard . I cover the semi-rich who have lucked out living along the rim of the golden arc that begins with a wave breaking on the rocks of Big Sur, or maybe on the 18th tee at Pebble Beach, embraces Carmel Valley, curves along the strawberry fields above Watsonville, laps under the wharves of Capitola and Santa Cruz, and comes to rest on the sand by Milly's Fish Mix at Half Moon Bay . I live on the Bay, practically in it, in a beach house with my almost-wife, a divorced beauty, also an English professor. I found my first murder case on a 6:00 a.m. jog through the fog, a sixtyish man, who had been pushed from the end of his cliff-side lawn seventy feet above. No,he didn't jump. You wouldn't either if you had his money and knack of blackmailing. His golden-haired daughter in Carmel hired me while cheating on a drug-bum tennis pro. Jim Russell worked in New York publishing before moving to the West Coast.