Bad Scene by Max Tomlinson

Reported on Colleen Hayes in my review of Tie Die not too long ago, which is #2 in the Colleen Hayes Mystery series. Bad Scene is #3. 

Backstory in brief. Colleen is from Colorado. Got pregnant at 16. Had Pam. Her husband was worthless. When Pam hit puberty, the abuse got real. When Colleen learned of the abuse, she struck back, stabbed the pig in the neck and watched him die on her kitchen floor. Called the cops. Confessed. Spend just shy of 10y as a guest of the Colorado Dept of Corrections. In that 10y, Pam's anger with what her mom did boils over and off she goes into various communes in the mountains and west coast. When Colleen is released, Pam wants nothing to do with her mom. That doesn't fly with Colleen and she goes on the hunt, eventually settling in San Francisco. While doing a nothing job, she ends up doing some off the books investigative work that leads her to taking steps to become a licensed PI, which is kinda tough for an ex-felon. Backstory done. Current day in this series is the late 1970s. Disco, platform heels, and bell bottoms are the norm.

For a PI, divorce cases pay the bills. While tracking down nefarious lotharios in her short time as an off-the-books PI, Colleen has developed a bit of a network of sources. One, nicknamed Lucky, tells her that he overheard some bikers talking about an upcoming plot to murder the mayor and the person behind the threat is a current SF Board of Supervisors member. Being a good citizen, Colleen tells her contact in the SFPD. They check out the Board member and find nothing so the threat gets lost in the SFPD bureaucracy. 

But one other thing Lucky overheard was that the bikers were expecting a delivery of LSD from The Moon Ranch, a commune of hippies in the CA mountains outside of the bay area. And The Moon Ranch was the last sightings of Pam. So Colleen starts digging learning that Pam may actually be part of the delivery.

Or maybe not, but Colleen has to find out. To her horror she finds out that Pam has taken up with a cult run by a charismatic South African committed to perfection in everything . . . including death. And this guy has taken a couple hundred devotees to the slopes of an Ecuadorian volcano that is coming back to life. Colleen scrambles to get to Ecuador in search of Pam before . . . before what?

Tomlinson is cool. His stories take place in the not too distant past in an era and place where society was tilting in mulitple directions. It's easy to root for Colleen. She's in a place of her own doing and determined to dig her way out . . . if she'll just put down that damn shovel. 

Good stuff. Really good stuff. 

Now to find the first one.

Available August 2021

East Coast Don

P.S. one more thing. I suggest that readers pay attention to the publisher, specifically singing the praises of Emily Bestler Books. Add Oceanview to the list of publishers that consistently deliver the goods. Can't remember reading an Oceanview product that I didn't like.