Someone is killing illegal, Hispanic immigrants and leaving their bodies strewn like trash across Orange County, the playground of Southern California’s rich and privileged. But the murders go largely unnoticed, the anonymous, “Juan Doe” victims as invisible in death as they were in their hidden lives, toiling in low-wage jobs serving the wealthy…. until forensics specialist Samantha “Smokey” Brandon sees the gruesome pattern.
Ex-stripper, ex-cop, Orange County forensic specialist Smokey Brandon is tough, hip, visceral, and lusty enough to make both Wambaugh and Spillane sit up
Smokey has a bittersweet, after-hours voice that makes her the most distinctive new female crime professional since Patricia Cornwell’s anxious medical examiner Kay Scarpetta appeared on the scene
She’s sometimes funny, sometimes spooky, and always perfectly fluent in the language of dread. There’s a wonderful freshness here, a curiosity and hunger to know that sets it apart
Smokey is almost too interesting a character, what with her eclectic career history and her many hobbies, which run to bird watching, charity work and steamy sex. Lucky for her, the author has given her a good brain to go with her dashing style.
THE JUAN DOE MURDERS will undoubtedly be classified within the mystery genre, where it will boldly shoulder its way to the front of the pack. But this is more than a mystery novel; it is a collage of verbal photos, taken from different angles, of the social and political culture of Southern California