Created by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger
SoCal in the mid-1950s, and everyone’s having fun fun fun, even if nobody’s even heard of The Beach Boys.
Yet.
It’s not all fun, fun, fun, though, and that’s what keeps former LAPD detective and Korean war vet SKYLAR DRAKE going. When we first meet him, in Slivers of Glass (2014), he’s scratching out a living doing stunt work for the movies and a little detective work on the side, but as the series progresses, he and his partner Casey Dolan, his former partner in the LAPD and a first-generation immigrant from Ireland, form D&D Investigations.
They make a good team.
Mind you, old habits die hard and detecting’s not the ambitious Skylar’s only side-gig—he’s also trying to open a gym, and D&D offer bodyguard and security services.
Sure, there’s a dark side in this medium-boiled series—every now and then, Skylar broods about his dead wife and daughter, killed in a mysterious house fire, and there’s a lot of chatter about dirty cops and politicians, assorted corruption and murder, but for the most part it’s easy-going nostalgia and retro-name-checking (Schwab’s!) that keep the sun shining on this breezy series. James Ellroy it ain’t.
Still, for those hungry for 50s-era pulp, this one’s for you. The authors capture not just the era but the era’s bippity-boppity-boo spin of so much detective fare—the books read more like long-lost episodes of 77 Sunset Strip than Mickey Spillane. And Skylar doesn’t just spin his wheels around LA—his cases take Casey and him to a pre-statehood Hawaii, Vegas, Catalina Island and perhaps the scariest place of all… Disneyland!
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
The books are courtesy of the wife/husband team of Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger. New Yorker Janet escaped the freezing winters and hurricanes for the warmth and casual lifestyle of SoCal with her family at the ripe old age of twelve,, and turned to writing in 2001, publishing  crime fiction and cookbooks, while Will is a Southern California writer and graphic designer, whose novels include  The Final Checkpoint, Something’s Cooking at Dove Acres and The Naked Groom.
NOVELS
- Slivers of Glass (2014) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Strange Markings (2015) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Desert Ice (2017) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Slick Deal (2018) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
- Game Town (2019) | Buy this book | Kindle it!
SHORT FICTION
- How It Began: The Skylar Drake Mysteries: A Prolgue (2021)Â |Â Kindle it!
A short prequel, narrated Casey Dolan, Skylar Drake’s formerpartner in the LAPD.
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
