NOVELS
THE HAIGHT MYSTERY SERIES
The Haight Mystery Series follows Lieut. Jimmy Spracklin’s pursuit of murderers in San Francisco’s hippie enclave of Haight-Ashbury during the tumultuous 1960s. Behind the façade of peace, love and flower power, The Haight can be a treacherous place, as Spracklin’s runaway daughter quickly discovers.
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THE ASHBURY HIDEAWAY
A Novella
When Marie Spracklin’s childhood friend Raymond dies in Vietnam in August 1967, she blames the man who advised Ray to enlist – her father, SFPD Lieutenant Jimmy Spracklin. A sixteen-year-old A student, Marie escapes her father by running away to Haight-Ashbury, hoping to vanish among the thousands of hippies celebrating the Summer of Love. She soon learns the harsh realities of trying to survive amid the addicts, burglars and sexual predators. With her father desperately searching for her, she finds the best protection she can – with a novice member of Hells Angels.
Want to learn more? Find out how to order A Companion to The Ashbury Hideeaway by clicking here.
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THE HAIGHT
Book 1 of The Haight Mystery Series
Jimmy Spracklin thinks he knows Haight-Ashbury when he’s called out to the hippie enclave to investigate the murder of artist John Blakely in the spring of 1968. Marie, Spracklin’s beloved daughter, ran away to the Haight during the Summer of Love the previous year. But heroin is now replacing acid as the most popular drug in Haight-Ashbury and violence is growing. Now Spracklin, the head of the SFPD homicide department, must catch Blakely’s killer while he struggles to bring his daughter home before she becomes another victim.
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A HITMAN ON HAIGHT STREET
Book 2 of The Haight Mystery Series
When the hippie daughter of a local industrialist is found dead and dismembered in Golden Gate Park, Jimmy Spracklin must find her murderer as he tries to evade an Internal Affairs investigation into his previous conduct. The problem is the IA probe is targeting not only Spracklin but also his daughter Marie. One misstep could result in Marie facing a murder charge. The second book in The Haight crime series is a dark page-turner set against the counterculture of the 1960s.
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THE PRODI SYNDICATE
Book 3 of The Haight Mystery Series
With his marriage and career in turmoil, Lieut. Jimmy Spracklin is a bender or two away from Skid Row in November 1968. When he and SFPD golden boy Jake Jansen investigate the death of art dealer Luigi Prodi, Jansen dismisses Spracklin as a washed-up boozer, no better than the stoned hippies they encounter in Haight-Ashbury. The contempt is mutual, but Spracklin and Jansen have to work together to figure out who beat Prodi to death in the back of his Haight Street art gallery.
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CODE 3 ON BUENA VISTA
Book 4 of The Haight Mystery Series
The SFPD brass expects Lieut. Jimmy Spracklin to hound the shooter to Hell and back when his old partner Jake Jansen is gunned down in Haight-Ashbury. But it’s complicated. It’s not just that Spracklin hates Jansen’s guts and doesn’t care that the guy survived the shooting. And it isn’t even that Jansen was spying on Spracklin when the sniper fired the shots. It’s that Spracklin is convinced Jansen is a dirty cop and the shooting was underworld payback.
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THE FLAMING TURRET
Book 5 in The Haight Mystery Series
No one could convince Lieut. Jimmy Spracklin that the fire in his Haight-Ashbury boarding house started by accident. The blaze that killed his hippie landlord broke out four days before Spracklin was due to appear as the key witness in a federal murder trial. In The Flaming Turret, Spracklin employs all his cunning and toughness to find the arsonist and avenge his dead friend.
PRAISE FOR THE HAIGHT MYSTERY SERIES
“Spracklin is a terrific tough-guy detective...
Highly recommended for those who enjoy a cracking good detective story — or for anyone who remembers when the Haight was the centre of the universe.”
“Atmospheric and full of twists, The Haight peels back the psychedelic layers of the sixties’ hippie counter-culture to reveal an intriguing crime.”