STEAL THE SHOW is the newest Willis Gidney mystery, set in Washington, DC: Willis Gidney needs money because he’s found a girl. No, no, not that kind of girl. This is an abandoned baby girl. Gidney found her on a case. So he hands the girl to the cops, right? Wrong, because Gidney started life the same way—abandoned. He knows all about D.C.’s juvenile-justice system, having barely survived it himself. That makes it hard to give up the girl. Too bad that unmarried private eyes aren’t usually thought of as ideal parents. So now Gidney needs a lawyer, and that means money. Enter Rush Gemelli, a code-writing hacker who pays Gidney to commit a felony. Just a small one. Nothing serious, really, but you know how these things can snowball. Gidney thinks this is a onetime venture, but Gemelli has other ideas. He blackmails Gidney into joining up with his father, Chuck, the head of the motion picture lobby in D.C. And when Chuck’s former partner is murdered, it looks like someone may be playing Gidney for the fall guy. Add to that the unwanted attentions of a crazed actress, the D.C. case worker from hell, and the Vietnamese and Salvadoran gangs out to kill him, and it’s all Gidney can do to keep from getting his movie ticket punched–permanently.
DRINK THE TEA is the first Willis Gidney mystery, and winner of the Private Eye Writers Competition for Best First Novel. Willis Gidney is a born liar and rip-off artist, an expert at the scam. Growing up without parents or a home, by age twelve Gidney is a successful young man, running his own small empire, until he meets Shadrack Davies. That’s Captain Shadrack Davies, of the DC Police. Davies wants to reform Gidney and becomes his foster father. Though he tries not to, Gidney learns a small amount of ethics from Shad – just enough to bother a kid from the streets for the rest of his life. Now Gidney’s a PI, walking those same streets. So it’s no surprise that when Gidney’s closest friend, jazz saxophonist Steps Jackson, asks him to find Jackson’s missing daughter, Gidney is compelled to say yes — even though she’s been missing for 25 years. He finds a woman who may be the girls mother — and within hours she is killed by persons unknown. The police accuse Gidney of the murder and throw him in jail. Maybe Gidney should quit while he’s behind. But when his investigation puts him up against a ruthless multi-national corporation, a two-faced congressman, and a young woman desperate to conceal her past, Gidney has no time left for second thoughts. In fact, he may have no time left at all
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