Dead in the Rose City — R. Barri Flowers

A cross between Body Heat and Mike Hammer, Dead in the Rose City is a taut, hardboiled detective novel where 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. These qualities are put to the test when Drake is framed for murder in the midst of two seemingly unrelated cases. The more he investigates, the more he realizes they are intricately and dangerously connected. It literally becomes a life and death issue as Drake has to use all his detective skills, and then some, to fit all the pieces together in a deadly, high stakes whodunit and why.