Rochelle Staab

Recently widowed crime beat reporter Tess Hammond turns grief into purpose when her editor assigns her a seemingly small missing-teen story that balloons into murder, corruption, violence, and white slavery in Depression-wrought, Prohibition-era 1932 Los Angeles. As the search for the young woman leads Tess from an underground speakeasy to a Poverty Row studio, from Hollywood Boulevard nightlife to a gambling ship at sea, she encounters a world of mobsters, corrupt cops and, eerily, the chain of duplicity and corruption that cost her detective husband his life and almost ends her own."Overall, it's a well-paced mystery that feels fresh, authentic, and uncannily modern.
A rewarding series-starter with a promising, brainy sleuth." ~ Kirkus Reviews"...gritty and satisfying... Staab's plotting is brisk and clever, and she avoids making her Depression-era setting a cliché. Fans of hard-boiled noir who want to follow a female lead down L. A.'s mean streets will be pleased." ~Publisher's Weekly