Complex characters.
Shocking twists.
A debut crime thriller readers can't put down.
When Maria Varela first made detective, more than a few cops called her a nepo-baby behind her back. Sure, having a legendary detective for a father hadn’t hurt her career, but he was retired, and the one closing cases was her, not him. Eventually all the arrests silenced even the loudest of the doubters.
Then a long dormant serial killer murders her brother.
Last seen in 1983, the Desert Saint killed five people. All shot twice in the head with the same gun. All with a token placed on the left hand. The best efforts of law enforcement to solve the murders had failed, and when the killings stopped, Las Vegas moved on. Now, only retired cops and the family members of the victims even remember who the Desert Saint was.
So why return now? And why kill her brother?
Capturing a killer no one else could is a hard enough task.
Figuring out why the Desert Saint came for her brother might tear Maria's life apart.
Some crimes are best left unsolved.
★★★★★ “As much of a page-turner as anything I've read in recent memory. I raced through this book in two days."
★★★★★ “Non-stop action, tight pacing, and great characters."
★★★★★ "First surprise from this genre in a long time"
Maria Varela Mysteries #1:
"Noirish, hard-edged, and memorable Las Vegas procedural." -Booklife.com
"An emotionally charged, brilliantly-written debut crime thriller." - BestThrillers.com
Maria Varela Mysteries #2
Who would want to kill a star long past his prime?
In the sequel to The Desert Saint, Maria Varela returns to work after an extended absence. Her first case back is the murder of Benny Alvarez, a once famous comic, who was killed in the Revelation Casino penthouse suite. With all the security cameras and key card records, Maria and Michael figure this case will be easy to solve.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
The casino owner, ostensibly Benny’s best friend, wants the case closed quickly so as not to interfere with the casino’s pending sale, and while all the evidence points to an obvious suspect, Maria’s instincts tell her something is off. When newspaper articles start questioning Maria’s fitness as a police officer, she knows someone really powerful is pulling the strings, and her new sergeant doesn't seem interested in protecting her. As she digs into the suspect and the evidence, she finds out that everyone has something to hide and hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.
Maria will have to decide if finding out the truth is worth the blowback when even those closest to the victim don't seem to want the case solved.
★★★★★ “Maria is a great and (for me) likable character but with a definite edge to her."
★★★★★ “The Family Man comfortably occupies the space between a 'cozy read' and a 'whodunit cliffhanger.'"
★★★★★ "Fast paced and great dialogue"
Maria Varela Mysteries #3
A crypto influencer lured to her death.
A circle of supposedly close friends eager to move on.
A father recently released from prison hell bent on revenge.
Jasmine Olivera called herself the Queen of Crypto. Then someone shot her twice through the window of her white Porsche. With no witnesses or physical evidence, Detective Maria Varela digs into the details of Jasmine’s life. She finds a reality much different from the carefully tended social media image and suspects who seem pathetically shallow but are actually disturbingly devious.
Finding Jasmine’s killer is hard enough.
Closing the case before an angry father closes it for her might be impossible.
Maria Varela Mysteries #4
A reporter beaten to death.
A missing notebook.
An unending list of suspects.
Detective Maria Varela hated Les Hilton. Then someone tied Les to a chair and worked him over until even his ex-wife couldn't recognize him. Tasked with finding his killer, Maria finds out that for all of Les's reputation as a mercenary, he still had some journalistic principles and was working on a story that threatened some of Las Vegas's most powerful people.
At the heart of that story, Ariella Matos, a missing woman that no one seems to want found.
In order to solve the case, Maria will have to find Ariella, but doing that might put everyone Maria loves in harm's way.
Maria Varela Mysteries #5
This is book two of a two part story. The first part is the book, The Reporter.
Usually the desert is where problems are buried.
But this time it's where the solution is dug up.