Nobody’s Child

A YOUNG WOMAN AND HER BABY VANISH INTO THIN AIR… And a “nice” middle-class family turns out to be anything-but.

“

Jeri combines V.I.’s social conscience with Kinsey’s badass attitude and a snappy narrative voice

. . . Dawson manages to blend her social criticism into a rich plum pudding sprinkled throughout with memorable characters.”

--Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post Book World

It’s Christmas in San Francisco, and stalwart Bay Area PI Jeri Howard is having a tough time locating her holiday cheer. Maybe it’s her recent birthday. 34’s no 44, but it’s not 24 either. Maybe it’s seasonal depression. The incessant, chilly northern California rain isn’t exactly helping. And neither is the flu. Plus, there’s the investigating business.

Jeri’s most recent all-absorbing puzzler happens to revolve around her prickliest client to date:

Naomi Smith is a well-to-do woman from Piedmont—she’s rich, slender to the point of emaciation, and her cold, hard stare yields no secrets. Her voice doesn’t yield much either—truth to tell, working with Naomi is like squeezing blood from a stone.

Basically, she’s the most disagreeable woman—and possibly most aggravating client—Jeri’s ever met, let alone worked with.

But you can’t be picky when you’re writing checks to cover groceries. Ms. Smith wants Jeri to look into the details surrounding the decomposing corpse of a young woman recently uncovered by a couple of construction workers in an Oakland fire zone.

Deadpan, Naomi suggests the Jane Doe might be her long-lost daughter Maureen—and she wants Jeri to investigate (in the name of family discretion).

Maureen would be twenty-one years old. She ran away from her well-ordered life just three months before she was due to graduate from high school. And her mother hasn’t heard from her for a full month—but why she hasn’t gone to the authorities is a mystery.

Also vanished into thin air: Maureen’s now-2-year-old daughter, Dyese, and Naomi’s latest beau, Professor Douglas Widener, who disappeared after a romantic weekend getaway to Lake Tahoe—at just about the same time as Naomi’s daughter.

Has Maureen run away to follow a man? Perhaps a much older man? Or has she been abused? And if she was murdered, has her toddler been murdered too?Jeri finds herself delving into a bizarre and heart-wrenching cold case, uncovering social injustice and family secrets so bleak even Christmas can’t snap her out of it. Fans of

Marcia Muller’s fellow Bay Area detective Sharon McCone and Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone

will love Jeri, as will really any mystery series reader who likes their female sleuths as smart as they are sympathetic. And as an extra treat for San Francisco history buffs, art deco architecture tidbits sprinkle the pages like confetti (well, nerdy confetti). Plus there’s Jeri’s irresistible—albeit apathetic—furball Abigail, for mystery fans who happen to be cat lovers.

“Jeri Howard never fails to enlighten and entertain,

even in the grimmest of circumstances. Dawson is a writer with the courage to take on the big issues without flinching and this time her plot revolves around homelessness and the impact on ‘nice’ middle-class families when the HIV virus invades their lives.”

--Val McDermid’s Crime Beat, Manchester Evening News

“Compassionate and tenacious, Oakland PI Jeri Howard makes her fifth appearance in this finely crafted, absorbing adventure.”

--Publishers Weekly