Brandy Martini

She left the big city police force to start life over as a private investigator in a small mountain town, where things prove to be a little too quiet...until she lands in jail next to a drunk hippie with a missing son and ends up tied to a tree in the forest.

After a Chicago drug lord with a 9mm puts three fresh holes in her body, Detective Brandy Martini moves to the mountain town of Boomville, CO to start a new life as a private investigator. A misunderstanding at the laundromat one night lands her in lockup, where she meets her first client: a world traveling, goat ranching hippie with a missing son whose top-notch weed seems to be attracting all sorts of unwanted attention. While chasing down leads and dodging various attacks on her life, Brandy must also adjust to the sudden arrival of her disaster prone, Sorbonne educated sister Annie into her new life and home. Also on the to-do list: deal with her dog's hunger strike, hide feelings she has no business having for one Lieutenant John Pritzky, and repress memories about what really happened back in Chicago.

As the clock ticks down and the body count goes up, Brandy's investigation kicks into high gear, taking her out into the forest and on a journey to hell, and taking the reader on a wild, intense, and emotional ride.

High Crimes mixes humor and suspense, weed-fueled conversations with action packed scenes, bar stool philosophers with the acerbic bartenders who serve them, freshly arrived hipster snowboarders with change-resistant locals, cowboys and hippies with cartels and Proust scholars, and coconut-milk-latte-sipping residents with Jack-Daniels-in-the-morning ones.

Fans of Janet Evanovich will enjoy the lighter moments and the family dynamics; fans of Carl Hiaasen will appreciate the irreverent humor, the offbeat characters and the gritty undertones. Fans of Nevada Barr, Edna Buchanan and Sara Paretsky will get to know another tough and smart female protagonist with a complex inner life and a tendency to view the world through a darker lens. Fans of Kill Bill can expect some decent butt-kicking.