Sleeping to Death — G.D. Baum

[Sleeping to Death has been named (i) a Finalist in the Mystery category of the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards; (ii) a Finalist in the Crime Fiction category of the 2015 National Indie Excellence Book Awards; and (iii) a 2015 Top Summer Read by IndieReader.] The head of the drug trade in northern New Jersey is assassinated in a prison controlled by a rival. Private Investigator Lock Tourmaline is hired by the family to solve the murder. The timing is not good. Lock's ex-wife was taped in flagrante delicto without her knowledge. The video is now being sold by that same rival drug lord as pornography, and she is hell bent on stopping him by any means necessary. Lock reluctantly places himself in the line of fire to protect her from the very man he is investigating as a suspect. At the same time, Lock is confronting the harsh truth that his martial arts mentor, known only as “Grandfather”, is dying. This makes no sense to Grandfather's young wife, April, a mistress at a local BDSM dungeon. She is the mother of Grandfather's four year old child and knows her husband to be in better than perfect health. However, as Lock explains, “This is not death. It is overliving. He's growing too substantial for the world.” In their confusion and grief, she and Lock develop a deep emotional bond that blossoms into love. It is complicated by the fact that April is married to Grandfather and works for Lock's current lover, the prima donna of the dungeon. Lock has to choose between committing himself to the spiritual growth and insight that is almost within his grasp or pursuing the gritty, day-to-day struggle to find the killer. Will the killer go free because Lock Tourmaline has issues?