Death of the City Marshal

Here’s all the information on how to purchase Death of the City Marshal, book two in the Old Los Angeles series. The paperback is $15.99 and the ebook $3.99, and it runs about 300 pages.

Synopsis for Death of the City Marshal

It’s October, 1870, and once again, violence erupts on the streets of Los Angeles, and City Marshal William Warren is severely wounded by his deputy Joseph Dye. Fortunately, winemaker and physician Maddie Wilcox arrives on the scene to take care of the marshal. But the next day, she finds the marshal smothered in his bed.

The morning after the marshal’s death, someone splashes red paint all over the front porch of his home, and a list of his sins posted on the front. The list of people with grievances against the fiery-tempered marshal is long. But then another prominent citizen has his sins posted and house front splattered. Maddie takes an interest in the vandalism in the hopes of finding Marshal Warren’s killer. But she soon finds a killer driven by a profound longing, and who is prepared to do the worst to keep that most basic of human desires: a home.

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Historical Note

In this second installment, I massaged the history a touch because it’s kind of hard to have a whodunit when you know whodunit.

The historical facts are these. Marshal William Warren, more or less, L.A.’s first police chief, was also the first officer to be killed in the line of duty. I kid you not, his own deputy Joseph Dye shot him in a fight over the bounty on a prostitute.

Mystery vs. History

Even though in real life, Warren died of his wound from the gun battle, I did need a mystery. So in the book, Warren got killed by someone else. But I really worked hard to get all the facts straight surrounding the gun battle and the events of the next few days.

There are those who might question whether this is a legitimate approach to historical fiction. I believe so, not that one should play fast and loose with the facts. Absolutely not. The trick, in this case, was to give a good reason why the historical record says one thing and I’m positing another. In this particular case, I suggested that there were some folks who wanted to believe what became the historical record.