This isn’t what I had in mind. When you’re gay and pushing fifty, and then move with your husband from the rat race of LA to sunny Palm Springs, you’re thinking: easy street … the good life … cocktails by the pool … fun and games.

But no. After he dumped me, he was murdered, and I was arrested (briefly). So then I found myself starting over, tending bar, trying to make ends meet.

My name is Danny O’Donnell, but even that has changed. When I applied for the bartending job, the owner said, “We already have a Danny.” Then he rummaged through a drawer and pulled out a name tag from a former employee, telling me, “There you go—Dante.”

That job didn’t last long, but the name stuck, and my circumstances improved a bit when I landed a new gig as a concierge for a local vacation-rental company. Catering to the whims of our higher-end clients, I learned that these visiting members of the pampered elite don’t travel light. They bring lots of baggage—of the messed-up sort.

That’s what happened earlier today when I went to a new property of ours, a posh guesthouse on the grounds of a sprawling estate. I intended to provide a warm, flawless welcome to Maude Movay, an author known as the queen of romance novels. She was checking in for a full month with a retinue of her hangers-on, in need of seclusion while working on a manuscript with a tight deadline for a multimillion-dollar deal.

But she didn’t show up. Her “people” arrived—but no Maude.

And one of her people, Maude’s publicist, was barely out of the car when he got into a pissing match with Agnetha Berg, the surly head servant at the estate. The flamboyant gay publicist, Lanford Endicott, later pulled me aside to confide that he had suspicions about Agnetha’s past, wondering if I happened to know anyone who could help with a background check.

As it happens, I know just such a person.

Jazz Friendly is a private investigator who used to be a Palm Springs cop—in fact, she’s the one who tried to arrest me for my ex-husband’s murder. Needless to say, we didn’t hit it off at first.

On the surface, we couldn’t be more different. She’s Black, straight, and fifteen years younger than me. She also has a history of anger issues and booze problems—and a street mouth that erupts without notice. But we’ve managed to find some common ground, and our mutual antagonism has evolved into an unlikely friendship.

So this afternoon, I phoned Jazz to set up an appointment with Lanford Endicott—all in a day’s work at Sunny Junket Vacation Rentals.

Desert Deadline, A Dante & Jazz Mystery Book #2
Genre: Cozy
Release: July 2023
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

Dante O’Donnell and Jazz Friendly make an unlikely pair of crime solvers, thrust together by iffy circumstances in the so-called paradise of sunny Palm Springs. He’s white and gay, a concierge at a vacation-rental outfit; she’s Black and straight, a private eye on the rebound from a failed marriage.

Maude Movay, a reclusive author of romance novels, is facing a tight deadline for a multimillion-dollar deal. So she checks in at one of Dante’s rentals intending to write a blockbuster, then checks out on a gurney, feet first. It was murder, all right, and Jazz steps in to help prove who’s guilty. Soon, though, a second tragedy strikes, this one much too close to home. For both Dante and Jazz, the race is on to name a killer, save a fortune—and rescue an innocent child.

About the author
Michael Craft is the author of 19 novels, four of which have been honored as finalists for Lambda Literary Awards. His 2019 mystery, ChoirMaster, was a 2020 Gold Winner of the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award, and his 2022 Dante & Jazz mystery, Desert Getaway, was a 2023 MWA Edgar nominee for the Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award. Michael grew up in Illinois and spent his middle years in Wisconsin, which inspired the fictitious setting of many of his prior books. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles, and now lives in Rancho Mirage, California, near Palm Springs, the setting of his current Dante & Jazz mystery series. Visit his website at michaelcraft.com.

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