Synopsis "Steele Shield (The Jasmine Steele Mystery)"
SHE'S ALMOST FAMOUS-AND SOMEONE'S TARGET. EVEN HER COP BEST FRIEND CAN'T KEEP HER SAFE... "This time it's personal" is a phrase all too familiar to NYPD veteran detective Jasmine Steele. Trouble seems to find her and her family-a recurring nightmare serving as the traumatic driving force behind Kimberly Amato's pulse-pounding hard-boiled police procedural mystery series. In this nail-biting entry, Jasmine's nearest and dearest find themselves tangled in a web of terrifying cyberbullying, hair-raising stalking, sexual harassment, and murder-with Jazz stuck in the middle. Some may call Detective Jasmine Steele stubborn; others contrarian. At the very least she's old-fashioned. So she's looking forward to a few days of peace and quiet after finally tying the knot with her longtime better-half Frankie. Unfortunately, fate has other plans when the newlyweds' best friend, rising-star actress Hadley Moreno, turns up on their doorstep, hysterical. Seems a perp broke into her upscale apartment and ransacked the place-with a creepy dollop of reverence. In fact, the whole crime scene looks far too personal for comfort. What's more, it looks like the deed was done by a professional. And it was long-planned. But that's nothing compared to the discovery of Hadley's boyfriend Logan, who's found poisoned in his own home. Jasmine suspects both crimes are the work of an obsessed individual who has reached the point of violence, and she's worried he's more intelligent-and more dangerous-than the average stalker. With the help of her stellar NYPD team, Jazz heads up an investigation that quickly falls down the sordid rabbit hole of the darker, more twisted side of social media, all the while suspecting she might be too close to the case-and fearing for the safety of her loved ones. Because any time anyone in Jasmine's biological or chosen family is in danger, she runs headfirst into the abyss. It's what makes her such an ace detective-and what makes this psychologically-astute domestic thriller series so compelling. But it's also her greatest weakness. In fact, it's bound to get her killed. A treat for fans of hard-boiled police procedurals, lesbian protagonist mysteries, and hard-boiled women sleuths-like badass female leads written by Megan Abbott, Laura Lippmann, Lisa Lutz, and Vicki Hendricks. Domestic thriller fans of Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train and Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl will adore Jazz in this page-turner.
