Unshackled, released on February 4, 2025, is a legal thriller about incarcerated women and the importance of them being reunited with their children. It’s the third book in my award-winning Camille Delaney series. 

I’m often asked, “Why and how do you write about crime and detectives in the 19th century?” The answer, I think, lies in a combination of early influences and personal history.

I was in one of my favorite places – the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles – when I first learned about the murder of Cecil Wells in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1953. Flicking through the newspaper archives, I read that the prime suspect in the case, Cecil’s wife Diane, took her life in a Hollywood hotel a month before the trial.

The environment plays a role in every novel. When clouds darken the sky, they darken the mood of the story. Extreme temperatures drive people to act in ways they’d never imagine on a normal day. And a flash flood can turn an ordinary afternoon hike into a desperate race for survival.

When I moved to Seattle in the early eighties, it was called the Emerald City,  and it was lovely.  I lived in two separate condo buildings on Second Avenue at the north end of the Denny Regrade and worked downtown in an office building at Sixth and...

What happens when a teenage girl regains consciousness after a horrible car accident, only to discover her entire family has disappeared? This question, this fear, is loosely one that’s haunted my nightmares most of my life: waking up or coming home and realizing that my entire family is gone.