If you plan to spend a day with Del Shannon, make sure your seatbelt is fastened and that you’ve brought along a back-up piece—you’re in for a wild and dangerous ride.

As a female investigator in Tucson, Del works for Desert Sands Covert, a firm specializing in finding and recovering missing persons. When we first meet Del, in the series debut, NAZARETH CHILD (September 2011), we discover that she has already gained quite a reputation for being good at what she does. Her picture appears in the newspapers every time she turns around, it seems. Something that swells Randall Willingham—her boss at Desert Sands—with pride, but also gives him cause for ulcers. “She’s smart and determined and damned good-looking,” he would say. “But that nasty streak of impulsiveness will get her killed one day.” Randall worries about his girl.

See, there’s something that drives Del—a need to fill some empty void. A need born of having never known her mother and having grown up with a distant and emotionally absent father. That hole in her heart, that need to “fix” the unfairness of life, fuels her willingness to face-off against ruthless perpetrators, and feeds her desire to, not only, win over adversity but bring ultimate justice to those who have been so wronged.

Hit-and-run affairs and tragic relationships characterize Del’s love life. It will take a strong and honorable man to win her over for good, keep pace with her life, and lead the way. Qualities she’s found lacking in all but a very few men. But that doesn’t keep her from trying.

Each Del Shannon adventure starts and ends in Tucson, but, in between, dire and unfortunate circumstances takes her on a quest into sometimes odd and dangerous locals, in an effort to fulfill her latest assignment. What twist of fate lies waiting just around the next corner? What journey of the heart?

SONORA CROSSING, the second book in the series, was just released in September (2012). This latest adventure sends Del across the Arizona/Mexico border, and into the dangerous drug corridors, to recover a six-year-old girl who many believe possesses the gift of second sight. There, strange prophecies and deadly deceits combine to complicate her quest. And Del must test her will against the girl’s uncle, the ruthless Sonoran Assesino, Santos De La Cal. Only with the aid of the rugged and handsome resistance fighter, Francisco Estrada, will Del potentially survive.

Meet the author
Darrell James is a mystery writer currently residing in Tucson, AZ. His debut novel, NAZARETH CHILD, featuring the young, female missing-persons investigator, Del Shannon, was the winner of the 2012 Eureka Award for Best First Novel and is a current nominee for both the Anthony and Macavity Awards to be presented in October. SONORA CROSSING, book two in the series, was just released in September 2012. In addition, his more than thirty short stories have appeared in numerous book anthologies, including the Lee Child (MWA) anthology VENGEANCE. Visit Darrell at: www.darrelljames.com