Billions of dollars in potential casino profits can turn the nicest people ugly. Even in an upscale beach city like Santa Monica A gaming goliath is steamrolling local opposition and build a glitzy high-rise casino on the shoreline. A real whodunit confronts Santa Monica Police Department homicide detective Dave Mason when a crucial city councilwoman is murdered on the eve of the vote bringing the casino one step closer. The dance between politics, money, and big ideas that change the landscape draw Mason in, taking his attention away from his daughter's bullying, and his impending divorce....

High-tech burglary and murder are bad for business in the upscale, tourist-destination beach city of Santa Monica with its leftist politics, rich homeowners, and huge homeless population. Bad for Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department. A deadbeat burglar has been found in the upscale Santa Monica beach condo of a playboy studio exec. The dead body must link up with a string of high-tech burglaries, and the Chechens Mason keeps meeting must link up with each other somehow, but how? The investigation leads Mason down mean streets into the dark world of embezzlement and an...

A forest fire burning in the mountains surrounding a remote California village interrupts the Oktoberfest celebration, followed by the discovery of the mayor who has been beheaded. Sheriff's Detective Dex Stafford concludes everybody hated the mayor for different and very good reasons, but nobody will talk. His nerves fraying, Stafford finds himself involved with his partner's hysterical daughter, at a time when he fears his partner is on the take. His mother moves in with him, bringing a Jack Russell who hates him, and stories about his father he doesn't want to hear. Patrol Officer Holly...

Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department ignites a firestorm of controversy when a beautiful young girl from a rich Muslim family is found dead in a car arson fire. Mason is outraged to have to fight his own department, the community, and his skeptical girlfriend who push toward labeling this as a hate crime, or even domestic abuse, when he knows the answer lies in the girl's silent family. Joseph Wambaugh fans will enjoy this behind the scenes look at a police department in a liberal city which cannot accept that an honor killing has come to the glitzy shores of upscale,...

A gruesome murder in a cat rescue sanctuary splinters animal lovers and animal haters in a serene California mountain village. Village patrol officer, and animal activist, Holly Seabright, intrudes herself in the investigation to clear the name of the founder, a heroine among the animal rescue community. Hot shot homicide investigator, Dex Stafford, battles a cat allergy and a dislike for a place without a Starbucks-or even streetlights. Nothing goes his way. He and his partner disagree over the course of the investigation. A city boy in the countryside, Stafford pursues the killer, but the...