Kate Gillespie

Cold Case 2004

Deadly Legacy 2003

Fatal Truth 2002

Every Move She Makes 1999

Cold Case, 2004
Anthony nominee for Best Paperback, Macavity Nominee for Best Novel

Three years ago SFPD Homicide Investigator Kate Gillespie was in pursuit of a suspect who murdered a hooker in a sleazy motel, and she nearly lost her own life in the process. The shooter escaped into the San Francisco shadows and the trail went colder than the grave.

Now Kate's appearance on a Bay Area "crime stoppers" TV show produces new leads that carry her back into the sordid world of drugs and prostitution -- and point her toward a local crime boss whose missing wife is possibly linked to multiple men and multiple murders.

But when a dangerous knot of betrayals, secrets, and criminal cover-ups starts unraveling, Kate can only hope she'll be as lucky as she was on that black night at the Twin Palms Motel. Because the only way to the truth leads directly into the line of fire . . .

Deadly Legacy, 2003
Anthony Award Winner

San Francisco P.D. Homicide Inspector Kate Gillespie's investigation into a bizarre apparent murder/suicide is threatening to careen out of control. A dead man might not be dead. The families of the deceased are hiding something. And there are blood-soaked threads reaching into some very lofty places. But most perplexing of all are the shocking revelations of one of the "victims" dark and dangerous history -- the more Kate learns, the less she knows. It's a case that has placed Kate Gillespie on the hot seat as her investigation gets bigger by the moment -- and puts her perilously high on a rabid killer's hit list.

Fatal Truth, 2002
Nominated for the Barry Award and the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original

A homicide inspector with the San Francisco Police Department, Kate Gillespie worked hard to get where she is. But a frantic phone call from a snitch threatens to destroy everything she is and everything she's earned. Pulled from the bright lights of the Homicide office onto the shadowy night streets, she arrives at a clandestine meet just in time to see the frightened informer shot dead ... by another cop. Now Kate is a target, on a trail of dirty deals, corruption, and escalating violence that reaches back into her own troubled family history and deep into a department riddled with dark secrets and truths that kill. Suddenly Kate Gillespie is teetering on a "blue wall of silence"and being set up to take a long, fatal fall -- by a relentless killer who's hiding in plain sight.

Every Move She Makes, 1999
Kate Gillespie, the first female homicide detective in the San Francisco Police Department, and her partner, Sam Scolari, are investigating the discovery of a dead body in a freezer when Sam's wife, the coroner on the case, is murdered, perhaps by a serial killer who has been terrorizing the city. Sam suddenly disappears, leading everyone to think he is the murderer--and leaving Kate to solve the mystery and prove his innocence. She is thwarted, however, by three men competing for her attention: Mike Torrance, the Internal Affairs investigator following Kate in the hope that she'll lead him to Sam; her devious ex-husband, Reid Bettencourt; and Nicholas Paolini, a local crime boss against whom Kate is about to testify and who has been making threats on her life.