Jeri Howard
Created by Janet Dawson

One of the better of the new breed of female P.I.s, Berkeley's JERI HOWARD works the Bay Area. But, somehow, many of her cases seem to involve her family. In the first book, her ex-husband, a cop, brings her a case. In the second, her client is her father. That's fine -- private eyes don't have to be total loners; they can have families. But stuff like this starts to feel claustrophobic, almost incestuous.

Fortunately, as the series has progressed, the clients have started to pop up from all over the place, and Jeri has proven to be quite a determined and shrewd sleuth, and the series to be a remarkably reliable one, and quite popular, too. Jeri's debut, Kindred Crimes won the 1989 St. Martins/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Contest, and was subsequently nominated for the Best First Private Eye Novel in 1991 (but lost to Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress.)

Author Dawson is a former naval officer, drama major, amateur actress and journalist.

NOVELS

• Kindred Crimes (1991) ..Buy this book
• Till the Old Men Die (1993) ..Buy this book
• Take a Number (1993) ..Buy this book
• Don't Turn Your Back on the Ocean (1994) ..Buy this book
• Nobody's Child (1995) ..Buy this book
• A Credible Threat (1996) ..Buy this book
• Witness To Evil (1997) ..Buy this book
• Where The Bodies Are Buried (1998) ..Buy this book
• A Killing at the Track (2000) ..Buy this book

SHORT STORIES

• "Little Red Corvette" (1996, Lethal Ladies)
• "Blue Eyes" (2001, Murder Most Feline)
• "Scam and Eggs" (2002, Scam and Eggs)
• "Slayer Statute" (September/October 2003, EQMM)

COLLECTIONS

• Scam And Eggs (2002; contains three Howard stories) ..Buy this book

RELATED LINKS

• The Janet Dawson Web Site
  The usual bibliography, list of upcoming signing and the like.