She’s five-foot-two, gamine, and weighs eighty-nine pounds in a soggy trench coat. The nickname “Tinkerbell” has followed her from high school. It’s hard to imagine her riding a Harley named Boris, or packing a baby blue .357 Magnum. She does both. She’s Gina Miyoko, private eye.
After a disastrous engagement, quitting the San Francisco police force, and going walkabout in Gold Rush country, Gina has opened her own detective agency. Her usual cases involve suspicious spouses and worker’s comp fraud, but when her best friend, Rose, picks up a stalker, she hires Gina to help her figure out who he works for.
Both women quickly realize that Rose’s work as an undercover agent for the National Park Service is far more dangerous than they knew. The stalker is connected to a black market antiquities case Rose is investigating—and he’s more than a stalker; he’s a hit man.
When Rose is gravely injured in a murder attempt, Gina takes her place in an antiquities sting operation south of the border, and finds herself in a Mayan ruin deep in the wilds of Chiapas, pursued by a man she had come to believe was a friend.
Excerpt
When you are alone in the dark, hurting and frightened — no, terrified — that the next sound you hear will be the dying scream of a friend, or a round being chambered, you find things to do.
I prayed. I checked my watch. I checked my jacket pockets.
I had a little pack of Kleenex, my compass, my camera, and a hair clip. That was on the practical side. On the arcane side, I had a jumble of good luck charms: a Hopi tinu, an obereg, and a piece of wire from an old Cadillac’s tail light. And then, firmly in a class of its own (Things That Were Once Practical But Are Now Junk) was the cell phone that wasn’t much of a cell phone this deep underground.
I turned it on and was immediately mesmerized by the pale luminescence of the little screen. I hoped there was enough kick left in its battery to light my tiny world for a while. I used the wan light to check my bandages. They were fairly dry. I had stopped bleeding.
Mercy.
I shut off the cell phone-cum-flashlight and mentally checked the rest of my personal inventory. Earrings, a fake engagement ring, a watch, my Saint Boris medallion. I had a small custom tattoo on my right hip. Or at least I had before tonight. For all I knew, the bullet that had grazed my hip had cut a bypass through that neighborhood.
I prayed not. I was a bit superstitious about that tattoo. It was a Russian Orthodox “Old Believer” cross with a Buddha seated in an eight-petaled lotus in the heart of the second cross-bar and surrounded by beams of light. I’d gotten it the year I obtained my Private Investigator’s License. Other than the tattoo artist who put it there, my best friend Rose and I are the only two people in the world who know that tattoo exists. No one else has ever seen it. Not even my mom. It’s probably the only secret I’ve ever been able to keep from her.
My reeling mind wandered to places more pleasant than the pitch black guts of the Mayan temple in which I was trapped like a wounded animal, aware that tons of rock pressed down on my hiding place, and that a man I had once liked and trusted pursued me with one aim — killing me.
How had I come to be here, you might wonder? Hell, I wondered myself. One day I’m chasing down delinquent dads in San Francisco, the next I’m trying to avoid becoming part of a South American archaeological site. All Cruz Veras' fault.
A jolt of raw terror shot from one end of my body to the other; I was falling asleep.
I couldn’t fall asleep.
Okay, so the Wicked Witch of the West had routed me through her infernal poppy fields. I’d think of snow.
I pulled myself up off the stone stairs I’d been huddled on, wobbly and dizzy. My hip whinged. I took deep breaths and held them for three seconds, then let them out ... quietly.
I was in my fifth rep when I heard something that woke me utterly: a gunshot.
A gunshot.
Professional Reviews
My new favorite heroine
"Witty, feisty, sassy - a character to give Philip Marlowe a run for his money any day of the week - Gina 'Tink' Miyoko is my new favorite heroine. With whip-smart crackling dialogue and a plot that could turn on a sixpence, this is a fine and exciting debut and a thrilling piece of modern crime writing. Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff I salute you.” - E.S. Thomson, author of the Jem Flockart series
Such a terrific ride
“Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's The Antiquities Hunter breathes new life into the PI genre. Fast-paced, witty, and full of intrigue, it's a layered mystery with a deeply complicated and memorable main character in Gina Miyoko. Such a terrific ride.” - William Boyle, author of The Lonely Witness
An absolute original
“Bohnhoff’s The Antiquities Hunter is a wild, breathless ride, a true pager turner. The plot alone, although full of exciting and unexpected turns, isn’t what makes it so compelling. Rather, it’s the energy, humor, and no-nonsense of its lead detective, Gina “Tink” Miyoko, an absolute original, that grounds the story, pulls us in, and makes us care.” - John Copenhaver, author of Dodging and Burning
I enjoyed reading Gina's inventory in her predicament. I am not a reader, except for these brief submissions, so I'm unlikely to buy or review the book. But I would like to say that what you've written certainly looks exciting and your reviews seem to be quite good. It looks like you may have a series of books featuring Gina 'Tink' Miyoko. I've had the good fortune to live near San Francisco for three years and visit Tikal. The only underground tomb that I've been in was under the stepped pyramid in Egypt. The only danger was our old guide hitting us up for cigarettes. ;-)
Who's ripping off the Federal prison system---and how?
A funny crime caper with a diabolically clever scam--Imagine Charlie's Angels starring in 9 to 5 Meets the First Wives Club
