Marilyn's Mystery Reads

The streets of Los Angeles are grittier and meaner than ever before, and even the fabulously wealthy aren’t immune.

Police Detective Margaret Nolan and her partner Al Crawford are called to investigate the case of a man’s body found in a BMW Series 8 in an unsavory part of town.  The driver’s window is down, leading the police to believe that he knew his killer and had lowered the window to talk to them.

No identification is found on the corpse, but he’s identified by the car’s license plate.  He was Bruce Messane, co-founder  of  Peppy Pets, an organic pet food company that boasts that their products are good enough for humans to eat.                        

Messane and the Peppy Pets chief financial officer, Cynthia Jackson, had scheduled a meeting with the president of Wilder Foods for today.  Their company is on the verge of being acquired by the Wilder group, an international conglomerate, but its president informs Jackson that Messane needs to be there in person to sign the papers.  No Messane, no deal.

So after Bruce’s non-appearance at the meeting and because he doesn’t answer his phone, Jackson rushes out of her office to track him down.  She doesn’t know about his murder yet, but she soon will.

The morning following Messane’s death, the wife of the company’s co-founder, veterinarian Rome Bechtold, is abducted.  Now there are two crimes connected to the company, although it’s hard for Detective Nolan to see how they’re related.

Peppy Pets, after a brief period of financial problems, is doing very well, according to Jackson, and that turnaround was due to Messane.  In addition, with the impending takeover by Wilder, Messane, Jackson, and another employee at Peppy Pets were expecting a substantial financial windfall.  So, Nolan wonders, what is the motive for the company president’s death?

Then, despite the kidnappers’ warning not to involve the police, Bechtold reluctantly notifies them, and soon his house is swarming with LAPD officers.  Desperate for a few minutes to himself, Bechtold gets permission from one of the policewomen to take his dog for a walk around the block, but before he realizes what’s happening, the veterinarian is hustled into a passing car and injected with a drug that will put him out of commission while they take him away from his home and the authorities.

Unknown to the president of Wilder Foods, its outside counsel is also having problems.  Monserrat De Leon is becoming disenchanted with her advisory role to the company and is particularly unhappy with its president.  Her job at a prestigious law firm is no longer to her liking, and Wilder’s offer to become general counsel for his firm is less than appealing.  She definitely doesn’t need the money, as her father is a multimillionaire, but she does enjoy the work and the prestige of being the legal counsel for important corporations.   Then she receives two strange messages, one from her  erratic sister and one from her imperious father, and Monserrat needs to decide where her loyalties lay.

P. J. Tracy has written another exciting entry in the Margaret Nolan series, one that looks not only into the crimes committed but into the minds and actions of the people involved.  Margaret Nolan is a very appealing and realistic character, and Ms. Tracy helps bring Los Angeles and its many disparate parts to life.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.