NONFICTION
INVESTIGATOR.
Most defense attorneys use investigators to help their client’s defense. This book features the experiences of an investigator, highlighting her most interesting cases, as she talks to defendants, their family and friends, and other witnesses to find out what really happened.
The author is active in the California Association of Licensed Investigators and teaches at a school for investigators, the Investigator Career Program in San Francisco. (Proposal and chapters).
FICTION (BASED ON FILM SCRIPTS)
NEW IDENTITY: a sci-fi legal/crime action novel.
It’s a novel with strong film potential and some interested producers. It tells the story of Sam, a wealthy business owner in his 60s, whose life and health are falling apart. He tries for a new life using a breakthrough scientific procedure – having his brain transplanted into the body of a younger many, who turns out to be a dying criminal.
Under his new name, Jack, Sam marries and becomes a respected community leader. But Jack’s life is thrown into turmoil when a story about the criminal on the America’s Most Wanted TV show leads to his arrest for murder. His trial becomes a media circus about who he is – Jack, Sam, or the criminal. Besides being a great read, the story raises some serious questions about the ethical and social issues raised by the dramatic medical breakthroughs that have come to epitomize our times.
DEADLY AFFAIR: a cop/action/mystery thriller.
This novel is based on a script which also has strong film potential. It tells the story of Randy, a beat cop in his 30s who is having marriage problems, when he meets Melinda, a neighborhood activist battling drug dealers, on a ride-along. A few months after they begin an affair, Melinda turns up dead two hours after he sees her. He could be the suspect. Fearing the lies of dealers and gang members and a media circus, Randy turns to Josh, his brother-in-law and a homicide investigator, for help finding the real killer. Is it a drug dealer, gang member, or someone else? Josh helps him investigate, and they risk getting shot at and killed in discovering the killer.
MEMOIRS BY VICTIMS ABOUT CRIME AND SURVIVAL
MY NAME ISN’T MARIA.
A story of a woman who escaped from oppression in a Communist country into domestic violence and abuse by a half-brother resulting in a child, a trial, a conviction, and eventual triumph in her adopted country, Canada.
The escape from Romania to Canada is like a filmed adventure story, with a six week trek through the mountains, a run from the police and their dogs, a day hiding in the river and losing food supplies, and a voyage to Canada in a container on a ship, before being discovered by sailors and turned over to immigration.
Meanwhile, the physical and sexual abuse escalated from occasional beatings to becoming a hostage and having a child, until she made a dramatic escape, followed by an arrest, trial, conviction, and 7 year sentence, covered by the media. Now, the woman, who is living with a boyfriend as they raise her child, tells her story. (Proposal available).