Reviews of Blood Matters

"I am delighted to see Roxanne Prescott, Cannon's heroine from Guns and Roses,returning to law enforcement in Blood Matters. It's a suspenseful, compelling police procedural with a heart—and characters you'll want to see again."
—Donna Andrews, winner of the Agatha, Anthony, and Barry awards and author of Delete All Suspects and No Nest for the Wicket

"A realistic police procedural that explores the multi-faceted—and in this case—deadly world of adoptions.  Roxanne Prescott observes with a keen eye.  She can ride shotgun in my patrol car anytime."
—Robin Burcell, award-winning author of The Face of a Killer

"In Cannon's suspenseful second Roxanne Prescott mystery (after 2001's Guns and Roses), the down-to-earth detective and her colleagues at the San Diego Sheriff's Department search for clues to the murder of adoption agency CEO Sam Brennan, found in his home bludgeoned to death with a statuette of Michael Jackson. The host of suspects includes Brennan's two ex-wives and a spurned lover. The complex web of mystery intensifies when Prescott unearths information about the extent of Brennan's wealth, his eclectic collections, tell-all book deal and his agency's niche business of reuniting adopted children with their birth families. Prescott sets a trap to entice the killer as this expertly paced police procedural advances to a startling conclusion."
—Publishers Weekly

"Taffy Cannon has written an excellent police procedural that shows two bored and frustrated cops working a murder case that goes nowhere. The protagonist is a strong woman who gets along equally with men and woman while she is willing to learn from those who are willing the mentor her. The investigative process is fascinating, the supporting characters are well designed as Ms. Cannon proves one doesn't need blood and gore to make a police procedural believable."
—Harriet Klausner

"A transplanted Texan helps solve a quirky California murder... The solid police procedural moves along smoothly until the well-disguised villain is revealed."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Blood Matters, the fourteenth novel by Taffy Cannon, is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat!"
—BellaOnline.com

"Blood Matters is a by-the-book police procedural, one of the best I've read. Taffy Cannon is a top-notch and disciplined writer, whose style is exemplified by an economy of words. Ms. Cannon can capture a character in a few sentences—and parcels out personal stuff (never unrelated to what's going on in the story) about the protagonist so the investigation remains the focus. The procedure was realistic, the pacing superb, the occasional humor sly and dry."
—Cozy Library

"Although Blood Matters is a police procedural, it is influenced by Roxanne's time in the travel business. Instead of guiding travelers around tourist spots, she provides readers with running commentary on the San Diego area and interesting background on pertinent issues in the case. Fans who got to know Roxanne as a travel agent should continue to enjoy her company now that she's wearing a badge again."
—I Love a Mystery

"Taffy Cannon's writing style is so smooth that she just pulls the reader into Roxanne Prescott's world without any apparent effort. It's like sitting down in front of the television to watch your favorite program. Cannon knows her police procedural, and the reader gets a bird's eye view of how the police department works, down to the boredom of surveillance. Blood Matters is a delightful read with a great plot; wonderful pacing; and a well hidden villain."
—Midwest Book Review

"This is an expertly paced police procedural with many details about the world of adoption and its ramifications. There is an excellent cast of characters headed by the heroine, a down-to-earth detective. The suspense is kept at its fullest, ending with a startling conclusion."
—My Shelf

"Taffy Cannon is among the most reliable members of San Diego's mystery community; she can always be counted on for a good story well-told. This sturdy and convincing police procedural is no exception."
—San Diego Union-Tribune

Chapter One of Blood Matters

The dead man lay half-buried in yellowed paperbacks, their lurid covers promising steamy lust, gory murder, illicit passion and miscellaneous mayhem—generally heralded by dangerous, scowling men and women of questionable character and extreme cleavage.  There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of them, cellophane peeling from curled covers, crumbling pages browned.

Hard to believe we were in Rancho Santa Fe, one of the wealthiest communities in the world.

The folks gathered on the twisting, eucalyptus-shaded road half an hour earlier didn't really look like people who'd be in this ritzy neighborhood except by invitation, employment, or tragedy.  In this case you could make an argument for all three.   Most of us were from the San Diego Sheriff's Department Homicide Detail.  Everybody had rolled on this one, from the lieutenant on down to me, the lowest detective on the homicide totem pole. 

A couple of reporters waited behind the arbitrary police roadblock down the hill and the road dead ended a couple hundred yards beyond us.  Apart from the press, the only other civilian was a woman sitting in the back of a cruiser at the base of the driveway.  She had made the 911 call that started this whole gathering.  I positioned myself to watch her, as did some of the others.  Mostly all I could see was a mop of black curls, though her head sometimes shook as if she were crying.

My name is Roxanne Prescott and I'm a fourth generation officer of the law.  My great granddaddy and granddaddy were both Texas Rangers, my father's the Sheriff of Mecklenburg, Texas, and I started my career on patrol in Austin, as did a couple of my brothers.  I took a detour a few years ago and came to California to work for my aunt's travel agency, but I never stopped feeling like a cop and I never stopped missing my badge.  I considered going back to Texas, but by then I was hooked on Southern California.  I checked out the options and chose the San Diego Sheriff's Department over the San Diego Police Department because the SDPD seemed a little bit too urban for my taste. 

It was the right decision.

We were waiting now on the fourth member of our Homicide team, Detective Mike Ortega, who was stuck in a traffic jam on I-15, carrying the search warrant he'd picked up after testifying at the Vista Courthouse on the kind of case that haunts me, a baby shaken to death by a man who may or may not have been that baby's father.   Once the paramedics here had confirmed that the man inside was, in fact, quite dead, some of the urgency had dissipated.  It made more sense to do this by the books than to rush and screw it up. 

The 911 call had come in at 9:43 a.m.  It was getting on to eleven now and the marine layer had burned off,  leaving an azure sky that peeked through  the canopy of trees.  It was, however, a bit chilly here in the heavy shade, as we milled around, making small talk about sports, the latest San Diego political scandal, and the likelihood of a serious fire season after last spring's heavy rains. The last seemed a foregone conclusion.  It was early November now, and the greenery produced by those rains had crisped all summer into chaparral tinder just begging for a carelessly discarded cigarette or a passing pyromaniac.  

This part of Rancho Santa Fe is old, at least by Southern California standards.  Eucalyptus branches moving high above cast shifting patterns of light shadow around us.  I couldn't see the house beyond the eucalyptus trees, but the menthol aroma in the fall air seemed somehow mingled with the crass, metallic scent of money.

What had been called in as a possible homicide by the responding deputy could turn out to be something relatively simple, of course, perhaps a suicide mistaken for murder by an inexperienced officer.  Deputies know to err on the side of caution, to expect the worst and act accordingly.  It's a lot easier to be extra careful at the beginning of an investigation than to later have to explain to some tight-assed DA just why something wasn't done correctly.

"Great day for a murder." Wilkinson stretched as he got out of his car, where he'd been reading the San Diego Herald Express. 

Jed Wilkinson is the senior detective on our team of four, and he'd already been designated the case agent, the one who'd oversee this investigation.  Wilkinson has more years in than our sergeant or, for that matter, the lieutenant.   He's tall and lean, his thinning hair cut close to his scalp, his skin the rough, sandy texture and hue that comes from three decades of smoking in a year-round sunny climate.  Sure enough, he lit up as he leaned on the front fender.  I wasn't about to challenge him on anything, and I know he carries an Altoids tin in which he stashes his butts till he finds a trash can. 

"A great day for something," I answered, just as somebody called out, "Hey, here comes Ortega."

Mike Ortega's black Taurus was inching up the roadway.  When he got out he clasped his hands in front of his body, moving them from right to left and back, like the  boxer he had been briefly in what he usually called his misspent youth.  He handed the warrant to the lieutenant, who quickly read it and nodded.

"Okay, people, let's get moving."  Lieutenant Sara Blair was all business, but this was hardly a surprise.  In the three months I've been on this detail, I haven't seen any evidence of a sense of humor.  I'd been on the detail two weeks before I saw her crack a smile.

We gathered around as the uniformed deputy who'd answered the call took a deep breath and readied himself to report.  I'd been on his end of this situation before, and it was something I always dreaded.  His name plate identified him as Deputy Larson. He was young and buff, with pale coloring, honey blond hair and a set of shoulders that could advertise for any gym.  Time was he might have appealed to me, but I no longer care much for that does-he-or-doesn't-he, semi-steroid physique.

"I responded to a nine-one-one call for a dead body and possible one eighty seven at nine forty-nine.   A woman was sitting in a blue Honda on the parking pad outside the residence.  She identified herself as Ms. Laura Masters and said the paramedics had gone inside."  He pointed up the driveway.  "There were eleven other vehicles present on that parking pad, including an ambulance.  Ms. Masters told me that she had come to this residence to see why her boss, Mr. Sam Brennan, had missed a meeting at the office earlier this morning.  When there was no response she stated that she tried opening the front door and found it unlocked.  She went inside and discovered Mr. Brennan lying on the floor of his office.  She stated that she then exited the house and went outside to call nine-one-one."

One of the paramedics came outside then.  He confirmed that there was a dead body, said it appeared to have been there a while, and agreed to wait with Ms. Masters while Deputy Larson checked the rest of the house for other possible victims.

Inside he found the other paramedic standing over the body of a white male with silver hair, lying on his stomach on the floor, apparently beaten about the head.  The office itself appeared to have been searched. I then determined that there were no other persons on the premises and the EMTs left." 

The deputy wasn't getting any more comfortable, and I could hardly blame him.  He soldiered on, using that formal cop jargon that vaguely resembles English. 

Ms. Masters had told him that Mr. Brennan was not currently married and lived alone.  Having then made the appropriate notifications via the Communications Center, he went outside and asked Ms. Masters to wait in the rear of his patrol car and followed the departing ambulance to the base of the drive.  Two other deputies were just arriving then.  While I waited for you all to arrive, I ran the plates on the various vehicles outside the property." 

He ran down a list of makes and models, ending with a silver bathtub Porsche.  "They're all registered to Samuel Brennan, except the Honda belonging to the witness, Ms. Laura Masters." 

Now the questions began, thick and fast.  The young deputy held his ground and I was proud of him. 

Ms. Masters had identified the dead man as Samuel Brennan, who ran an organization called Adoption Central in La Jolla.  She had come out to his home because he failed to show up for a morning meeting and wasn't answering his phone.  She had been to the place previously and was familiar with the layout.  There was some evidence that a search had taken place in the office where the body lay.  She had mentioned a missing computer.

Up until the missing computer, this could have been something relatively simple: a domestic dispute gone sour, a surprised burglar striking out, a suicide turned messy.

But in a neighborhood like this, a computer suggested finance, probably high.

With Deputy Larson fully debriefed, Detective Wilkinson took charge.  Leadership comes easily to Jed Wilkinson, though not of the touchy-feely variety.  After three months on his team, I knew very little personal information about him because that was how he wanted it.  But I did know that he was organized, serious and almost preternaturally aware of his surroundings. We had some detectives from the Encinitas substation helping out down at the roadblock, and he immediately dispatched them to canvas the neighborhood, a task which was likely to involve more hiking than interviewing, the houses around here being on multi-acre lots.  He dispatched two criminalists up to the alleged crime scene, in the company of Walter Barr from the medical examiner's office.  He put Mike Ortega on notification of relatives.  He asked the sergeant to track down and commandeer a detective from Financial Crimes named Ray Craig, renowned for his skill on finance, investments, securities and miscellaneous fiscal chicanery.  

"And let's pick up all the computers at Brennan's office, too," Wilkinson said.  "Probably too late if there's something going on, but at least we'll have locked the barn.  It's about eleven-thirty now. Let's plan on meeting up back at the office around four.  Anything jumps out at you, call me asap.  Prescott and I will start out with the witness"—he nodded toward the woman in the back of the squad car—"and the crime scene. Any questions?" Nobody spoke. "Good, then. Let's hit it."

As the group dispersed, Lieutenant Sara Blair came up to me.  "Pay attention on this one," she ordered.  "Make yourself Wilkinson's shadow.  It could be very instructive."

"Yes, ma'am," I said, but she had already turned and walked away.

Did she think I wasn't normally paying attention?  I try not to feel paranoid, but the lieutenant has a very unsettling effect on me.  She is always crisp and efficient and fit to the point of obsession.  Nothing pleases her more than a nice triathlon under a blazing sun.  And no matter what she says, I can always feel an undercurrent suggesting my own inadequacy.  I've watched to see if she acts this way with everybody else, or anybody else, and I honestly can't tell.  Does that mean I really am a crummy detective?  Maybe so, if  I can't even understand my own boss.   On the other hand, Lieutenant Blair never seems chummy with anybody, and I've heard murmurings that she is simply getting her card punched at homicide on the road to higher ground.

"I'm going to run up and look at the crime scene," she told Wilkinson. 

She meant this literally.  Without waiting for a response, she sprinted up the driveway, sticking to the gravel edges and avoiding the asphalt pavement.  Not likely, of course, but there just might be some kind of usable footprint or tire print, and she would not be the one who obscured it.

With everyone on their way, Wilkinson turned to me.  "You got a Coke or something in your car?"

He knew I did.  I always travel with a little cooler and an assortment of soda and bottled water.  "Sure.  You want something to offer her?"

"You got it."

I fetched a can of Diet Coke and a bottle of Dasani water, both chilled and both products of the same mega-purveyor of liquids, and we went to the squad car where Laura Masters was sitting.  I realized as we got to the car that she was doing something on a laptop computer and that much of the movement I'd noticed earlier seemed related to the iPod she had dangling from her ears. 

So much for sorrow.

Still,  people react differently to sudden death, and sometimes it's with the sort of it-didn't-really-happen because-I'm-not-thinking-about-it behavior she was exhibiting here.  In any case, the woman was an employee, not a relative.  There was no reason to think she was working anyway.  She might be playing solitaire or catching up on e-mail.  Or, given the circumstances, polishing her resume.

Wilkinson opened the rear door.  "Ms. Masters, I'm Detective Wilkinson and this is Detective Prescott.  Why don't you step out and stretch your legs a bit?  We'd like to ask you some questions about what's happened here this morning."

Laura Masters snapped shut the laptop, on which I could now see black text on a white base, some kind of word processor.  She carefully removed the ear buds and stepped out of the backseat, stretching like a cat as she did so.  She was fortyish and very thin, with chocolate eyes and shoulder-length, blue-black curls pulled back on one side by a silver clip that matched her hoop earrings.  No rings.  Her jeans were fashionable and snug, her trendy magenta top trimmed in matching lace.  Her manicure and pedicure also matched the magenta, and her handshake was cool and firm.

She had been crying, but was dry-eyed now.

"What happened is that I found the house unlocked and Sam dead on the floor in his office.  Not much more that I can tell you than that."

I held out the beverage selection, feeling a bit like a flight attendant.  "Would you like something to drink?"

She took the water bottle, twisted off its top and said, "Thanks."  She didn't sound very thankful, however.  What she sounded like was a sulky teenager.  I reminded myself again that severe shocks affect people many different ways.

"I've got a couple of Granny Smith apples, too, if you're hungry."

She shuddered.  "They're probably not organic.  And frankly, after seeing Sam, I don't feel like ever eating again."

All content © 2005-11 by Taffy Cannon.