HOUSE OF SMOKE by J.F. Freedman - SIGNED FIRST EDITION BOOK

Kate Blanchard was a promising police officer in Oakland, California, until she fumbled a hostage incident that resulted in the murder-suicide of three people. The blunder cost her a marriage that was already decaying (her husband was a wife-beating rogue cop), custody of her two daughters, and her job. Kate pulls up roots, moves to Santa Barbara, and becomes a private investigator. Her first big job comes from Laura Sparks, the only child of one of the wealthiest families in California. She hires Kate to investigate the suspicious death of her boyfriend in the county jail. Her family includes two generations of ambitious, driven women who will do anything to preserve and protect their wealth and status. Laura's mother, Miranda Sparks, using her seductive beauty, runs the family's multi-million-dollar holdings. Miranda's mother-in-law, Dorothy Sparks, is an aristocratic matriarch with her own family agenda. Kate Blanchard finds herself caught in the middle, trying to sort out a looming scandal of immense proportions, while trying to fashion a new life for herself that holds the promise of love and redemption.