Dru Ann, thanks for letting Emily Hunter, the lead character from the new series come and guest post today.

Emily makes her appearance in Face of Greed and she’s a fun character to write. She’s smart and a little snarky with—

Emily: Hey, Writer Boy. You gonna mansplain this whole thing or are you gonna let me get a word in?

JL: I just thought people needed to know a little more about you before you—

Emily: I can handle it. Dru Ann wanted a day in the life piece about me, not you.

JL: Okay then, jeeze…

Emily: Anyway—no two days are the same for me as a homicide detective. My day starts when someone’s day ends. Late nights and long hours come with the job. I’m the detective who pulls the tough cases because I’ll go where the evidence leads me. I don’t care about the optics or politics—and that has landed me in a bit of trouble.

JL: Trouble like you found in Face of Greed?

Emily: I don’t care if the victim was a personal friend of the Mayor. No one gets to tell me who I can and…and can’t investigate. I’ll do what it takes and for as long as it takes to uncover the secrets—like in this case—why Roger Townsend was killed in his own home. It looked like a home invasion but there’s more to it. Everyone has secrets and I’m going to find them.

JL: You’ve been recognized as one of the department’s best detectives, but it wasn’t easy getting there was it?”

Emily: There are those in the department who feel a woman shouldn’t be on the job. Too emotional they say, or too weak. All that means is I have to work twice as hard as my male counterparts to get the same opportunities and recognition. Most cops aren’t like that, and I have a great partner in Javier Medina, but there are enough old-school knuckle draggers still around to make it hard for women on the job. I’ve had to deal with it my whole career.

JL: Your job doesn’t give much time for a personal life does it?

Emily: See if you can do something about that in the next book would you. I’m trying to find that work/life balance everyone talks about. After I finish a long day chasing evidence, I need to take care of my seventy-year-old mom. She’s had to move in with me and it’s hard on both of us. She misses her independence and I miss my privacy. Not that I begrudge taking on a caregiver role for my mom because her dementia and episodes of forgetfulness have become more frequent. She nearly burnt down her own home forgetting she left the oven on. I can’t leave her alone and I can’t think of “putting her in a home” to be forgotten. It’s hard. Hard on both of us. One minute we’re having a conversation and the next she thinks I’m still in high school.

JL: Do you have anyone to help you?

Emily: Not really. I have no other family to call on. Some distant cousins who won’t pick up the phone if they think they’ll have to bust a grape to help me. I am lucky to have a few friends and in-home assistance to cover the time I’m not able to be with her.

Say, you think you could build in a little “me” time in the next book?”

JL: I’ll see what I can do about that.

Emily: Thanks, gotta run—duty calls

Face of Greed, A Detective Emily Hunter Mystery Book #1
Genre: Thriller
Release: November 2023
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

Greed, corruption, and betrayal— no murder is as simple as it seems

When a prominent Sacramento businessman is killed and his wife injured in a brutal home invasion, Detective Emily Hunter and her partner, Javier Medina, are called to investigate. At first glance, it seems like a crime of opportunity gone horribly wrong, but Emily soon finds there might be more to both the crime and the dead man.

The high-stakes investigation also comes at a time when Emily is caring for her mother, who has early-onset Alzheimer’ s, and Emily struggles to balance her job with her personal life. The city’ s political elite seem to want the case solved quickly, but darker forces want it buried.

Could there have been a motive behind the attack, making it more than a random home invasion? Emily uncovers clues that cause her to reconsider her understanding of the crime. A deadly game of greed and deception pulls Emily deeper into the shadowy world of gang violence and retribution. She has to walk the razor’ s edge to identify the killer— without becoming the next victim.

Perfect for fans of Michael Connelly and Karin Slaughter

About the author
James L’Etoile is a former associate warden in a maximum-security prison, hostage negotiator, facility captain, and director of California’s state parole system, and he uses his twenty-nine years “behind bars” as an influence in his award-winning novels, short stories, and screenplays. His novels include Dead Drop, Black Label, At What Cost, Bury the Past, and Little River. Face of Greed is his latest novel and the first book in the Detective Emily Hunter Mystery Series. L’Etoile lives with his wife outside of Sacramento, California. When he’s not writing, you can find him working with his Corgi therapy dogs.