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 Stewart,...

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.