A Dean Drake Mystery

A cross between Shaft, Mike Hammer, and Body Heat, Dead in the Rose City is a taut, hard-boiled detective novel in which nothing is quite what it seems. Dean Jeremy Drake, nicknamed D.J., is a Jamaican-Italian private investigator and ex-homicide detective for the Portland Police Bureau. He is six-five, hip, tough, armed with a .40 caliber Glock, and courts danger and romance with equal abandon. Those qualities are put to the test when Drake is framed for murder in the midst of two seemingly unrelated cases.

Dean Jeremy Drake, a six-five, biracial private eye, nicknamed D.J., is once again up to his neck in danger, deception, and murder as he works three cases in Portland, Oregon, in the mid-1990s. The former Police Bureau homicide detective reluctantly agrees to be the bodyguard for a gorgeous lady named Bailey Carlyle, who claims to be on the run from her abusive boyfriend. When the boyfriend turns up dead and is identified as running a high-end call girl operation, the authorities point the finger at Bailey as a leading suspect in his murder, labeling her a jealous prostitute.