Kindle Edition Amazon No Dice Mar Preston Category:  Mystery/Suspense Publisher: Pertinacity Press/Createspace ISBN-10:  0984495207 Type: Fiction Pages: 345 Copyright: 01/03/2011 ISBN-13: 9780984495207 Billions of dollars in potential casino profits can turn the nicest people ugly. The city councilwoman with the deciding vote is murdered, presenting Santa Monica Police Detective Dave Mason with a real whodunit. A gaming goliath is steamrolling local opposition to build a high-rise casino complex on the shoreline of upscale Santa Monica. The crucial city councilwoman with the deciding vote is murdered. Confronting Santa Monica Police Detective Dave Mason with a real whodunit. The dance between politics, money, and big ideas that change the landscape draw Mason in, deflecting his attention from his daughter's bullying and his impending divorce. He struggles against his attraction toward the witness, Ginger McNair, the community organizer leading the opposition forces. Ginger must prove her innocence in the murder of the city councilwoman. She must also live with the threat that the real killer--probably someone she knows--is hunting her, fearing she could identify him. She hounds Mason to find the real killer. Mason struggles to keep his mind on this baffling case with way too many suspects with no alibis, while his own life unravels and the Ginger keeps interfering in his investigation. Can't this woman understand the danger she's in? Mason's focus lands on the money people: real estate developers, PR flacks, the hotels, the politicians and their dark shenanigans. An explosive secret boils up from Santa Monica's seamy past that the casino interests cannot suppress. It's then a down-to-the minute challenge for Mason to stop the killer before he strikes through the flimsy curtain of protection surrounding his witness.   Excerpt Chapter One Ginger McNair slammed the door of her red Subaru bearing the Gambling: Short Term Gain Long Term Pain bumper sticker. She roared out of the parking lot of the Civic Auditorium, allowing herself a furious wallow in despair. The city council had just taken another step closer to bringing a casino to Santa Monica. Ginger took the job running the anti-casino campaign certain that she could ride the vote to victory. Now she wasn’t so certain. Not when Schwarzenegger was in Sacramento and Bush was in the White House. When her cell phone rang she groaned, recognizing Councilwoman Kathleen Dyson’s number. It was already 9:45. “Ginger!” Dyson bellowed as soon as Ginger reluctantly said hello. She couldn't ignore the city council champion of her opposition campaign. “What happened to Wally? He promised he’d vote with us.” “Well, they got to him. Listen, kid, I had the strangest visit. We may have nothing to worry about.” “Tell me now. I feel like going home and drowning myself.” “Wait till I see you. Listen, would you bring over my glasses? I left them at your office when we were there this afternoon.” “Aw, please no, Kathleen. I'm exhausted." “C’mon. C’mon. I do stuff for you. I’m heading to the studio right now. See somebody. I'll tell you everything when you get here.” Ginger sighed, giving up the idea of going home for cat therapy and a pint of butter pecan ice cream. She dumped her overdue books in the bin in front of the library and circled back to their office, picked up Kathleen’s glasses, and drove to Dysons’ art glass studio a few blocks away down Colorado Avenue. At the base of a frill of coastal mountains that descended to the ocean, Santa Monica sat between Malibu, Pacific Palisades, O.J’s old house in Brentwood to the east, and Venice and its canals to the south. Santa Monica had grown bloated on the profits from tourism and film and entertainment businesses, the sun and beach and sand. She pulled into the lot outside Kathleen’s glass studio. The vintage 1950s building was a brick and stucco structure, almost an historic building in every-square-inch-developed Santa Monica. As Ginger knocked on the door, the lights went off in the hot glass shop in the back of the building. She knocked again and waited, then used the key Kathleen had given her. Pushing open the front door, Ginger sailed in, calling out “Kathleen, it’s me.” She paused in the center of the outside showroom. The display gallery shimmered in the street lights, the corners filled with glowing shadows. Flowers, fantasy animals, figurines, abstract sculptures, goblets and vases filled shelves and stood on display pedestals. Glass shelves gave the illusion everything was floating in filmy air. Ginger tapped her fingers on the counter. The door opening into the darkened artists’ work space in back stood ajar. Ginger called out again, “Kathleen. Hey, Kathleen. I’ve got your glasses.” A red pump lay on its side in a cone of light made by the half-opened door. Oh, no. There was a foot in the shoe. Ginger shoved the door open. Kathleen was fat and well over forty. With all the screaming and yelling she did, she was a good stroke candidate. A wild whirling shape came at her, flailing like an enraged predator bird, shoving, knocking her reeling into a work bench, which broke her fall. She flung her arms out instinctively grabbing at the huge flapping thing. Metal objects and glass crashed off the bench, shattering on the floor. She fell to her knees and something heavy smashed her shoulder. A boot brushed past her ear. She heard a gasp and an exclamation and rolled with an elbow upward to protect her head. A knife glittered, held by a figure shrouded in black plastic covered with blood. Then she heard running feet, felt the suck of air as the front door opened and closed. She struggled to her feet, dimly realizing that the warm wetness that ran down her arm was blood. Kathleen lay crumpled on her side with a dent in the back of her head and a blackish pool of blood spreading outward. A heavy vase lay next to her, blood and brain gore gumming up the black metallic leaves appliquéd over a green base. Ginger skidded sideways to collapse, dry-mouthed, a few feet from her friend and colleague. Panicky thoughts whirled in her head like dust devils. She wanted to reach over and pull down Kathleen’s skirt, knowing Kathleen wouldn’t want anyone to see her fat knees. The sudden thought jolted through her that the person who had done this might come back. She got to her feet painfully, ran out the front door to the parking lot around the side, unlocked her car door and fell inside. There was no one in sight. A pulse throbbed in her temples; she felt light-headed. With shaking hands she found her cell phone and dialed 911. ∞ Two young cops in a black and white Santa Monica police car raced up in front of the studio, lights flashing. Homicides were rare in white, upscale Santa Monica. As Ginger stepped out of her car, they wheeled to confront her. “I called you. It’s Kathleen Dyson. She’s a City Councilmember.” “Step back, ma’am. Let’s see some ID.” Ginger scrambled in her purse for her drivers’ license. One of them walked over to her, stiff-legged and herky jerky with testosterone, and took it. She followed his eyes and looked down at herself, seeing streaks of blood smearing her yellow linen jacket. “Whoever killed her cut me. My arm.” She held up her arm, palm upward, noticing another cut across her palm. Things moved fast after that. One cop kept an eye on her; the other circled the building, shining his flashlight into the darkness. When she pulled out her cell phone, he took it from her. She shook, adrenaline working its way through her system. Four back up units roared up and a crowd began to gather. The first officer on scene stood rigidly, young, his hands behind his back, staring straight ahead. ∞ Dave Mason left hockey practice, stuffing all his equipment into the back of his Jeep. Sometimes he went out with the guys whose motto was “Hockey is good. Beer after hockey is better.” Tonight he left the rink at peace, scoured out, his mind clean. A hard fought hockey game sometimes left him in a state of grace. He pulled into the Starbuck’s drive through and ordered. The caffeine blew through him, illuminating him like a string of Christmas lights. Oh man, that’s good, he thought. His cell phone rang with a call from his wife. “I couldn’t make her go to school again today,” Diana sighed. “Another stomach ache?” He held the phone tightly to his ear as he started the Jeep, feeling the suck of an old helplessness bear him down. He wanted to howl and bite the upholstery he felt so guilty. “Headache this time. I can’t force her. It’s just too upsetting for both of us.” Mason headed out towards Santa Monica from Culver City, past recently gentrified buildings, back to his new apartment. “I’ll come over in the morning and help you get her to school. Maybe around seven.” “I don’t know. We think …” “I don’t want to hear what Asshole thinks about my daughter. Okay?” “Okay, Dave. It’s just that these girls are so mean. We have to do something.” “Wait, I’ve got a call coming in from the Watch Commander.” He listened a moment and then flipped back to Diana. “Gotta go. We got a homicide. I’ll try and get over there tomorrow morning, okay.” She was pissed again. “I won’t hold my breath.” ∞ Ginger knew who Mason was when she saw him. He was big and mean-looking, arriving with wet hair and a cool gaze around taking everything in. Ramon pointed him out at an anti-casino demonstration last month. The police were monitoring the march to make sure a ragtag bunch of old ladies, students, and community die-hard activists wouldn’t throw any bombs, or try to take over city hall. Mason and an older, tough-looking Latino guy, double parked in a black Crown Vic to observe the passing march of anti-casino supporters. Mason had an interesting face with one eyetooth that overlapped the adjoining tooth. Ramon, her fellow organizer, muttered, “What are the Homicide cops doing here? Can you believe this? Anything to clock up the over time.” Mason had thick black hair with a glitter of silver at the temples, late thirties. She recognized him from the coffee shop at the bowling alley where she had breakfast once in awhile. They had checked each other out over hash browns at adjoining tables only last week. He gave her his newspaper when he’d finished reading it, along with a flirty smile. Same brown suede jacket over a black shirt and a no imagination tie. Taller than she was at an even six feet. He gave her an assessing look. She knew already he would see her as a suspect. “I’m Detective Mason. What happened here?” Her hands continued to shake. “I’m Ginger McNair, the Executive Director at the Community Coalition Against Casino Development. Kathleen’s our champion on city council.” Her teeth chattered as she spoke. “Let me start over. You know who she is, don’t you?” He nodded. “There was a public hearing tonight at the Civic Auditorium about the casino and Kathleen forgot her glasses and asked me to come over here and bring them over,” she spluttered. “Like Ron Goldman. Nicole’s glasses? O.J? Remember?” She fumbled in her purse and Kathleen’s glasses fell out. “See. See. Here’s her glasses.” She gave him her business card and he clipped it into the notebook he was writing in. “Was the door open when you got here, Ms. McNair?” “Please, call me Ginger. No, I have a key she gave me. Sometimes I brought documents for her to sign, picked stuff up. It was locked and I opened it and just breezed in. Nobody was out in the gallery area and the lights went off in back when I came in. I called out to her. That’s when somebody shoved past me. It was dark and everything happened really fast. There was this funny noise. Like a big bird flapping its wings. He knocked me down.” “Did you see who it was?” “No! It was dark.” She was suddenly engulfed in tears spurting from her eyes. He waited stonily until the storm of fear and grieving had passed. Ginger pulled herself together. “Did you touch her? Did you touch anything else?” he demanded. “Other than the door?” “I can’t remember. I don’t think so. I was so shocked, you know. I knew she was dead--all the blood. I just knew she was dead.” He couldn’t possibly be thinking she’d done it. But she knew how cops thought. Mason held those dead-steady brown eyes on her, making her more and more nervous. “Tell me again about this thing you saw.” “I don’t know what it was. It was dark.” “Was there anybody else here besides this thing? Did you see anybody?” “No, no, no. Nobody except me and Kathleen.” Mason went over it again, asking her the basic questions one at a time. She knew better than to try and anticipate him. Some instinct of self-preservation kicked in. It was already too late to stop answering questions, as she knew she should have done. She told him again that after Kathleen’s call, she had gone back to her office and fiddled around with email for a bit to unwind. She waited for their cleaner to finish up. Then she drove Armando to the bus stop on the way to Kathleen’s studio. “Wait here,” Detective Mason said finally, pointing to the back of a black and white Santa Monica police car. “I don’t want to sit in a police car.” It was clear that what she wanted didn't matter. At least she didn’t see anyone in the crowd of gaping onlookers that she knew. She watched Mason go to the door where a uniformed officer kept an entry log. Mason gestured over his shoulder at Ginger. Paramedics arrived adding to the radio static and blinking red lights. They examined her arm. Her yellow linen jacket had already been taken away and she was given a small scratchy blanket. They bandaged the deep cut in the fleshy part of the forearm. It hurt now. A female officer came over, bleached hair all spiked, its peaks as stiff as her manner. She asked Ginger to empty her pockets and the contents of her purse and made an inventory. It was 12:30 now and Ginger was tired and feeling sick from the shock. Detective Mason came back through looking for her. She checked his card. His first name was David. “Would you come inside, please? I’d like to walk you through.” Mason kept her waiting while he talked to the guy he’d been having breakfast with, probably his partner. The other guy was older and had the same flat cop eyes. She got up and began walking toward them. They stopped talking and watched her. ∞ Mason recognized McNair immediately. The Department kept a file on local subversives and extremists. McNair and her group had made the file with all the demonstrations and rallies about this proposed casino, even though the demos were peaceful and law abiding. Now she wasn’t the same perky big gal he’d watched at breakfast last week in the coffee shop chatting with her community activist buddies. He knew who she was alright--a troublemaker. Gone was the big smile that flared often across her wide Slavic face, the vivid animation of her laugh. Mason knew already this one wasn’t going to be like the bang-bang-punk-banger shootings they had in the Pico Neighborhood with all the homies pointing fingers at each other. The media would buzz, smelling carrion. A celebrity murder could be a career maker—or breaker. There was so much to supervise that he was moving as if he were on speed, talking nonstop, firing instructions right and left, repeating himself. Dogging people just to make sure. The case was all in how good the paper for the record was. Hoping he was getting it right. It had to be right. He led McNair along a path marked with tape across the floor to the work area in back. He watched her reactions, cocking his ear to listen for false notes. He knew nobody was anywhere near a hundred percent when it came to detecting lies, but he was good. People lied to him all the time, even innocent people just because cops spooked them. He knew that. They stood at the door, watching the forensic techs spiral further and further inward towards Dyson’s body. The photographer moved his camera overlaying shot on shot, a tech logging and measuring, so that the case would stand up in court. A tech followed the photographer with a camcorder. The techs eyed McNair, standing with him. Mason introduced his partner, Arturo Delgado, to McNair who nodded absently at him. White cards marked each blood spatter, folded like little pup tents to indicate where samples had been lifted for typing and DNA testing. Mason felt McNair shake beside him when she saw the body. He asked her to point where she fell when she was knocked down. Delgado poked Mason and jerked his head toward the door. The mayor, Jim Kowalski, stood arguing with the officer on the door. Kowalski waved at Mason, calling his name. Mason pretended not to see. The ultimate political animal, Kowalski was reputedly maneuvering every angle to become a judge. Mason watched McNair angle away from him as well. She probably didn’t want Jim Kowalski to see her here as a witness, or even worse, a suspect. She’d need his vote on this casino business. McNair pointed to a cooling area at the back of the studio, a bench along the wall. A drop sheet of black neoprene plastic covered the bench. “If it was dark and he held it up in front of him and ran at me, it could have made that sound I heard—that rattle.” “We’ll check that.” Mason called Delgado over and they spoke a few minutes. He led her to an alcove in the display and sales gallery at the front of the building, out of sight of the main door. “Can I leave now?” she said, her blond, shoulder-length hair lank. There wasn’t much perk in her now. Mason looked at Delgado. They didn’t have enough to hold her, much less charge her. The preliminary background check showed no criminal record, no wants or warrants. Delgado shrugged. Mason’s call. The first person reporting was always a good suspect. “Couple more questions,” Mason said. “When you got here where did you park?” “Right next to her car. The green Volvo out there.” McNair pointed outside. “Did you touch her car?” “Of course not. Why would I touch her car?” He looked up at her from his notebook. “I need to ask these questions.” “Sorry. It’s been a long horrible day. We just lost a vote in City Council that we were certain we were going to win. Now we have to fight an election in two months.” Mason nodded. He beckoned to one of the techs who dusted the clear glass vases threaded with blue and silver chevrons. A uniform left at the door admitted another tech wearing a Forensics jumpsuit, a hairnet and gloves. He called a paramedic over. “Can you get this lady’s fingerprints, please?” “You want shots of her arm?” “Get the guys to re-bandage it when you’re done.” The paramedic humphed. “Wish you’d told me sooner.” McNair held her arm close to her body. “No. Absolutely not.” Mason turned back to her. “We need this for the court record. Believe me, you want to have a record if these are defensive wounds. I need to get a statement from you before you go.” For the next half hour amidst many disruptions, Mason walked her through the sequence of events while he made notes. They photographed her arm and hand from every angle and dressed the cuts again. It hurt worse than it looked. “Wait, Kathleen was going to tell me why Wally had changed his vote. That’s Wally Gladwin, one of the other city councilmembers. He’s been with the opposition campaign since the beginning, but when it came down to the wire on the referendum tonight, he voted with the developers. Complete surprise. How could I forget that? She told me she was expecting someone too.” “Who?” “I don’t know. She said she’d tell me everything when I got there.” He went back to his notebook. The statement boiled down to a page and a half in Mason’s neat, careful writing. He watched her sign it. “I’m going to have a female officer drive you home and get the clothes you’re wearing and those shoes as well.” “These are my favorite flats.” “You’ll get them back, but it probably won’t be right away. I don’t need to tell you that you need to be available, do I?” “I know you’re thinking I had something to do with this but I didn’t.” He watched her walk away, noting that she was limping. He decided to put a unit in front of her place to make sure she didn’t go anywhere. Delgado grunted, watching her. “You know who she is, don’t you?” “Yeah.” “She worked at City Hall in Community Relations, some cockamamie idea with all the neighborhood organizations. Getting them set up or some such until the job was eliminated. Now she’s out declaring war on capitalism.” “Yeah well, good luck to her,” Mason snorted. He was maybe a Democrat if you held his feet to the fire. Most cops weren’t. Already he could see a crowd of curious onlookers pressing up against the tape, jumping up to try to peer inside the clouded glass windows. He returned to the back room and stood next to Delgado who was watching the coroner’s investigator, an older guy who Mason hadn’t seen before. The investigator hunched over the body like a white-coated vulture picking over road kill. He carefully scraped each fingernail, placing the scrapings in evidence bags. “Somebody gutted her," he said looking up at Mason. "Got the blade—whatever—in there good, yanked it up and down so it tore up everything. I won’t know much more until the pathologist gets her on the table. Looks like your killer enjoyed it though. Probably somebody who knew her. Hated her, judging from the overkill.” He pointed to the dark mass of coagulated blood that blackened her white blouse. “What’s the weapon?” “Some kind of edged weapon. Double edged, looks like. Can’t tell yet. Took her down by hitting her in the back of the head with something heavy made of glass.” They looked around. “Something heavy and green,” he added. Delgado walked over to a shelf and pulled down a glass piece about eight inches high, thick, with a design of black leaves. “Like this?” He turned it in his hands, examining all sides of it. The coroner’s guy looked up at Mason and Delgado. “Bring that along. I imagine you’ll find pieces of something like it around here. We’ll find it when we do the post.” Delgado called over an evidence tech and gave instructions. He didn’t run his mouth unless he had something to say. It made a rest from other partners with the swagger and street talk that Mason had in the LAPD. Delgado could project tough just standing there. Due to a tumor on his vocal cords when he’d been a teenager, his startling Tom Waits voice alone got people’s attention. “No posing. No obvious semen around the face or the legs. Wouldn’t think sexual assault right away,” Delgado said to nobody. “Didn’t go for her face.” “Give this one the works,” Mason said to the coroner's investigator, already turning his attention to the checklist of evidence gathering procedures. “I always do.” “Let’s get somebody in here who can tell us what all this stuff is,” Delgado said. He led Mason to the work bench pointing out an array of pointed and sharp instruments. “See if anything’s missing.” “Right,” Mason said. “I called the numbers on the cards out by the display case. Dyson’s partner is somebody by the name of Judith Emery. She’s on her way in. She’s also the glass blower apparently--the head artist here. Just to jam us up, a bunch of people use this space. It’s a cooperative.” He read from his notes: “Glass cutters, glass melters, some assistants. Students.” “Started on the neighbors yet?” “Got the uniforms out canvassing for dog walkers, anybody coming home from the Promenade. There’s a couple of restaurants on the next block on Colorado--maybe somebody saw something.” Mason grunted. Eyewitnesses would swear it was somebody from four foot six to five eleven, everybody with the same immovable conviction. The bad guy was twenty, no forty, no--it was absolutely a young male in his teens. His hair was mousy or blonde, cut short, or yeah, he had a gray pony-tail. Everybody noticed skin color though. They got color right. Black was black. White was white. He went through the victim’s black nylon purse with gloved hands: lipstick, day planner, address book, pack of tissues, Swiss Army knife—the big one--scraps of paper, receipts, wallet. It held all the usual crap women carried around. He flipped open the day planner and looked for today’s date. She’d scrawled in “Council meeting. Vote.” Two names: Jimmy Edwards and Barry Forsythe. The names meant nothing to him. Delgado came back, smiling. “We got ourselves a footprint, front ridge edge at least. Nobody noticed it at first because a cloth from the workbench fell over it. Looks to be about a size twelve, athletic type. The shoe’s not new and there's some distinctive nicks, so maybe...” Mason’s eye went to the paper bags in which McNair’s flat heeled shoes with the smooth leather soles had been labeled and logged in. Her height, the way she carried herself so straight, those square shoulders, he still would have noticed size twelve feet. Not her print. The prosecutor would be dogging him to hit her hard, not that he needed telling. The Chief had come and gone and was looking crazy already. The case for sure was going to take his mind off his empty apartment and the phone call to his daughter he tried to make every day.

A Great New Voice in the Police Procedural Genre
i am totally shocked that this is the author's FIRST novel! It is such a fast paced who-dun-it, that I would have thought she had 5 or 6 books under her belt! Guess being a creative writing teacher really DOES give you the writing chops!

You will be hooked from the first chapter of the tight story. Her characters are lively, true to life and you can't beat real life for giving you an excellent backdrop to base a story on! The story has lots of twists and turns to keep you guessing. Even if you guess who the murder suspect is before the end, you'll be flipping the pages quickly to see how they get caught! You'll also be hoping there will be another book to follow- and there will be!

If you're looking for a new voice in the police procedural genre, check out Mar Preston!

Be Careful Before You Roll The Dice
Local opposition to establishing casinos in Santa Monica is the basis for this murder mystery by author Mar Preston. Activist Ginger Sinclair teamed up with Councilwoman Kathleen Dyson to try and stop the vote from going in favor of legalizing gambling in this city. But, casinos are moneymakers and billions of dollars can be brought in but someone decided to stop the vote cold by committing murder. Ginger Sinclair was on her way home when she received a call from Kathleen to get her glasses in her to deliver a speech at the art glass center. Tired and really not wanting to do anything but go home and relax she backtracks, goes to her office gets the glasses and falls prey to the wiles of the same killer that murdered her friend. Reporting the crime does not prove to be a positive experience nor does it eliminate her as a suspect. Detective Dave Mason is assigned the case and treats Ginger as his primary suspect from the start.

Dave Mason does not have just the murder to handle. His soon to be ex-wife calls him moments before he gets the call about the homicide focusing his attention on his daughter and family. Bullying in schools is a primary issue we read about in the newspapers or on the net when kids are victimized in cyberspace and in school. His daughter refuses to go to school and creates false illnesses and excuses to stay home much to the frustration of her mother who needs his help. Whether it is bullying in school or bullying others to change their views on political issues such as legalizing gambling and brining casinos these situations often turn out unfavorable as Councilwoman Kathleen Dyson learned when going against the those who wanted to bring Santa Monica into the world big money and casino gambling.

Dealing with the fact that she is the primary suspect in this murder investigation weighs heavily on Ginger's mind yet winning the vote at polls weighs even more. Warned by her father and brother that the killer might come after her only adds to her fear and her stress. But, will she heed their warnings or will Ginger forge ahead and stop at nothing to get what she wants as one killer will do the same. The developers stand to make a fortune as the activities try to countermand their efforts. Imagine more jobs, unions, taxes, higher rents, recognition for the tribe and more tourists on one side of the dice. On the negative side some feel as does Ginger gambling would bring in more crime, prostitution, corruption and violence hence the murder.

Author Mar Preston presents her research into the world of gambling, casinos and the framework behind the gaming laws. Developers stand to gain. There are many secrets that will be uncovered before the killer is unmasked.

One detective who does not appreciate the interference of our activist yet can't resist the opportunity to see her and is dealing with issues around his daughter and searching for acceptance from her friends. One smart activist who is willing to risk it all to attain her goals and fight for what she believes. Many voices are heard and many opinions given as to who killed Kathleen Dyson. One woman would be in danger and one killer will try to silence her before all is said and done. Added into the mix is the chemistry you can feel between McNair and Mason which is electrifying at times but held at a safe distance. With his partner Delgado and his entire team Mason feverishly works to meet the deadline to solve the case but can he? What really keeps the reader's interest is the author's research that she shares with the reader on gaming and how it works.

Then, something happens to refocus Mason to handle his daughter's problem that is going on blind eyes in her school. Bullies are really clever and often elude detection by some educators that do not watch for the warning signs. Understanding the rationale how initiatives get passed and their relationship to the Indian Tribes to get the casino on tribal lands is quite interesting.

One important piece of information leaked to Ginger would turn the roulette while in her favor but is it enough? Greed power, lies and manipulations and killer so filled with hate destruction stopping at nothing short of murder and kidnapping. How far will the killer go to bring down the coalition? Is time running out for Ginger and will Mason get there in time? Who gets caught in the crossfire? Author Mar Preston brings to light what happens when politics, corruption take over and the rights of a community are infringed. One smart cop, ones feisty activist and one smart nine year old that just might follow in her father's footsteps. How this all plays out you need to read for yourself and find out the surprise ending that just might make you think twice before rolling the dice.

Top Notch New Series
Community activist Ginger McNair meets Santa Monica homicide detective Dave Mason when a fellow activist is murdered and Ginger is assaulted. Although Mason is struggling with the breakup of his marriage, sparks begin to fly between the two.

When Ginger disappears, Mason and his partner Delgado pull out all stops as they try to find her before the killer strikes again.

No Dice is the first Dave Mason detective story written by Mar Preston. The characters are relatable, and relationships are well developed. It is an easy, fast-paced, enjoyable read. That the author has already continued the series is good news for Dave Mason fans.