Desert Deadline — Michael Craft

Dante O'Donnell and Jazz Friendly make an unlikely pair of crime solvers, thrust together by iffy circumstances in the so-called paradise of sunny Palm Springs. He's white and gay, a concierge at a vacation-rental outfit; she's Black and straight, a private eye on the rebound from a failed marriage.Maude Movay, a reclusive author of romance novels, is facing a tight deadline for a multimillion-dollar deal. So she checks in at one of Dante's rentals intending to write a blockbuster, then checks out on a gurney, feet first. It was murder, all right, and Jazz steps in to help prove who's guilty. Soon, though, a second tragedy strikes, this one much too close to home.For both Dante and Jazz, the race is on to name a killer, save a fortune-and rescue an innocent child.