Publisher's Synopsis
Dead Secrets: A Jack Mango Murder Mystery---The best way to keep a secret is to make it a dead secret.Jack Mango thought life couldn't get much better as a respected detective in the enigmatic laboratory town of Los Alamos, New Mexico. His life changes drastically when shot while protecting the governor from an assassin's bullet. He recovers, only to have his wife die of cancer soon after.Unable to cope, he moves his family to the central Pacific coast of California, an area of fond memories from his Army days, hoping to start anew. And, harboring a secret desire to reconnect with an old flame he rejected, bound by duty and honor to return home to his fiancé. Mango's first case three days into his new job as Police Chief, in the idyllic seaside town of Serrano, sets the tone. Psychiatrist Billy Morton is accused and convicted of violating his adopted daughter, Clare. Four years later, Billy is found dead on the beach shortly after being paroled from prison. Later that morning, his wife's lover, Harry Henderson, is found dead near a beached panga; the boat believed to have been transporting four thousand pounds of marijuana, off-loaded during the night.Billy's estranged wife, Stella, ostracized by the community for her implied collusion in Clare's abuse, takes to the hills. Clare is on the lam after threatening to kill Harry, after he terminates her job for clashing publicly with Billy at the local coffee bar. She meets up with the mysterious panga boat captain and the chase is on!Chief Jack Mango and his small, eclectic team of officers are thrust into a frustrating and frantic pursuit to find the suspects before they kill again. It doesn't help that his love life is a shambles, what with juggling a high profile career, a murder investigation, and haunting demons of love, death, and redemption.
