A Credible Threat

WHEN HARASSMENT ESCALATES…SOMEBODY COULD GET KILLED!

“…a chilling plot.”

--The Bookwatch, Midwest Review of Books

“In Dawson’s capable hands, the characters are believable and the story moves forward in a lively fashion.”

--Roberta Alexander, Contra Costa Times

Oakland PI Jeri Howard is now taking house calls. At least when her ex-husband's daughter, Vicki Vernon, is on the other end of the line. Vicki, who is an undergrad at prestigious UC Berkeley, fears the worst when her shared house receives multiple threats from an unknown antagonizer.

First, it's hostile phone calls. Then vandalism and stalking. And everything becomes real when Jeri picks up the house phone and hears the stalker's chilling voice herself.

As if that weren't enough, a nasty flyer circulates around the law school filled with bigoted epithets against students of color and women -- and it's uncannily similar to the anonymous caller's hateful words.

But with so many possible targets in one household, Jeri's just not sure which of the housemates is the target.

After all, Rachel volunteers at an abortion clinic. Ben is an African-American student on scholarship. Marisol spends her time helping victims of domestic abuse. And Vicki and Emily have been harassed on campus by a sexist chemistry student.

But when someone throws a pipe bomb through the students' window, the case all but explodes.

Hard-boiled detective fans who devour

vintage PIs like those invented by Sue Grafton, Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky, and Linda Barnes will will flip for this absorbing private investigator story

—and indeed Dawson’s whole series; so will those who enjoy the more contemporary Laura Lippman, Alison Gaylin, and T.R. Ragan “California PI Jeri Howard takes a deliciously suspicion-saturated interest in everyone around in her latest adventure.”

--Publishers Weekly