painting by  Jean Mannheim , C. 1920

 

California Coast Road mysteries play out along Coast Highway 1, that thin black ribbon unwinding along the continents edge, its characters fleeing memory and danger in a landscape that hides and then betrays them.  Jake Martin, artist and part-time detective pursues both hunter and prey from his studio in Laguna through the small beach towns, that hoard their own secrets.  On the California coast the wealth is in the land and it is this for which Ward’s characters scheme and murder.  The past – art colonies, the once great ranchos spread across the inland valleys and coastal mountains – beget vengeance and murder.  Exposed and vulnerable, ghost and killer flee ahead of Jake, north along the Big Sur where the narrow road clings precariously to the Santa Inez mountains as they plunge a thousand feet into a wild and unforgiving sea.

 

COAST ROAD MYSTERY SERIES

DEATH IN A CALIFORNIA LANDSCAPE

A NICE LITTLE BEACH TOWN

COAST HIGHWAY 1

THE LAGUNA CONTRACTS

 

ALSO BY ELIZABETH C. WARD

IMAGINARY GARDENS

MUSE

TENANT

A Cape Cod Journal: The Novel

 

 

 

 

 

 

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