She Came To The Castro by Mary Wings

Lean and mean, San Francisco private investigator Emma Victor (She Came by the Book, Prime Crime: Berkley, 1996) feels ready for her first ‘big-time’ caper?delivering cash to a blackmailer. She handles the first payment successfully, but before she can deliver the second and collect an incriminating video, someone kills the blackmailer. When she tries to report in, her employer, lawyer Wilhelmina, has disappeared and the intended blackmail victim, a mayoral candidate, throws her out of the house. A gay and lesbian film festival, a search for a woman’s long-ago live-in, and various memorable characters provide captivating sidelights. For most collections.

Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In the latest Emma Victor mystery, the popular series star’s baggage includes a recent romantic split-up, a newly acquired license to carry a concealed weapon, tickets to the gay and lesbian film festival at San Francisco’s historic Castro Theater, and the nasty job of go-between for a gay-friendly mayoral candidate who is being blackmailed with a videotape of a passionate indiscretion in a hotel room. Wings keeps the action hopping with a gathering of interesting suspects, including Jason Jeeters Jones, a hulking, trailer-trash, ex-con queer (whose film becomes the hot ticket, in more ways than one, of the film fest); Jones’ sister Kilimar; a middle-aged lesbian virgin; an unknown corpse with half his jaw blown off; and others. Eventually, the plot expands to encompass an international scheme to end democracy, which is perhaps a bit much for what could have been a simpler, less confusing, and more entertaining mystery. Whitney Scott –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.