An Olympic athlete finds her life in danger when she starts a feud with a ruthless gym owner
Homicide detectives don't chase streakers. So it shouldn't be Jill Smith's problem when Berkeley's new public nudity ban stirs the spirit of the city's exhibitionists, unleashing a horde of indignant flashers on the city streets. But department infighting has resulted in Jill being stripped of her gold detective badge and put back in uniform to pursue...

Jill investigates the death of a chef who was mysteriously poisoned by his own soup Until the helicopter crash, Jill Smith never knew fear. A homicide detective in the leftist enclave of Berkeley, California, she has faced down her share of thugs, thieves, and killers, but since surviving the downed helicopter, her nerves have been shot. Unwilling to submit to her anxiety, she goes back to work.   The chef and owner of Paradise, an upscale restaurant...

Vejay investigates the poisoning death of one of the town's most powerful citizens during its oddest annual event Though it sounds violent, Henderson's annual slugfest is less vicious than it is slimy. The regional festival honors the normally detested California banana slug with competitions to prove which slug is the biggest, fastest, or-in the event that gives the festival its notoriety-the tastiest. Rather than eat crow, the area's local politicians...

When a PI vanishes and leaves a body in his office, it's up to Jill Smith to pick up the pieces Jill knows something's wrong with Herman Ott as soon as she sees him on the patio at the Claremont Hotel. A perpetually broke ex-hippie private investigator, Ott is known around town for owning a wardrobe of nothing but yellow second-hand clothes. Yet today he wears all black, and after asking Jill to meet him at Berkeley's most elegant hotel, he clams...

To escape arrest for her best friend's murder, Vejay must find the real killer-before it's too late In the small woodsy town of Henderson, California, the electric company is strict about sick days. So when meterreader Vejay Haskell decides to play hooky, her first concern is staying out of sight. She skirts around the edge of town, making her way to Frank's Place, a cozy saloon owned by her friend Frank Goulet. After two cups of hot buttered rum,...

An activist's murder forces Jill to infiltrate Berkeley's psychedelic underworld A town as diverse as Berkeley, California, is never without controversy. This year the uproar is over the Rainbow Village, a hippie-occupied bayside lot that has degenerated into a drug-infested cesspool. As the city tries to eject the squatters, two Grateful Dead fans are murdered and a developer is assaulted. But for homicide detective Jill Smith, the conflict at the...

Former medical examiner Kiernan O'Shaughnessy investigates a scandalous suicide in a Catholic church Quick-witted, precise, and comfortable with corpses, Kiernan O'Shaughnessy was perfectly suited to life as a medical examiner. In her four years with the coroner's office, she never had one unhappy shift until the day they let her go. Enraged and adrift, she made her way to La Jolla, California, to set up a high-class private investigation service...

When an IRS agent is poisoned, Jill Smith faces a murder case in which dozens of California taxpayers are suspects IRS agent Philip Drem is found face down in People's Park, a haven of drug addicts and streetwalkers in the heart of liberal, eccentric Berkeley, California. By the time homicide detective Jill Smith arrives on the scene, Drem's wallet is gone and the tax collector is near death. The method of attack is as uncommonly cruel as the IRS...

A special three-in-one edition of Susan Dunlap's Vejay Haskell Mysteries, about an intrepid meter reader who solves the crimes that the police can't crack In An Equal Opportunity Death, Vejay Haskell is playing hooky from her job as an electric-meter reader in Henderson, California. She skirts around the edge of town, making her way to Frank's Place, a cozy saloon owned by her friend Frank Goulet. After two cups of hot buttered rum, they have an...

Newly promoted detective Jill Smith confronts a traffic circle homicide After six months of perfect weather, the people of Berkeley, California, have forgotten how to drive during a thunderstorm. Newly christened homicide detective Jill Smith is on her way home to a chocolate ice cream dinner when she gets caught in a traffic jam at the city's only roundabout. At the front of the line, she sees the trouble: a flipped-over Cadillac and one dead driver....