Twice divorced NY model, Lalla Bains, now runs her dad’s Crop-Dusting business in Modesto, California where she’s hoping to dodge the inevitable fortieth birthday party. But when her trophy red ‘58 Cadillac is found tail-fins up in a nearby lake, the police ask why a widowed piano teacher, who couldn’t possibly see beyond the hood ornament, was found strapped in the driver’s seat. Reeling from an interrogation with local homicide, Lalla is determined to extricate herself as a suspect in this strange murder case. Unfortunately, drug running pilots, a cross-dressing convict, a crazy Chihuahua, and the dead woman’s hunky nephew throw enough road blocks to keep Lalla neck deep in an investigation that links her family to a twenty-year old murder only she can solve.

Rebecca Phillips-Dahlke ran her father’s crop-dusting business near Modesto, California for several years during the early 1980’s. Her son and muse for writing this series, John Shanahan, was a career aero-ag pilot until his accidental work related death in Feb. 2005. Next in the Lalla Bains mystery series: A DEAD RED HEART A DEAD RED OLEANDER. A DANGEROUS HARBOR, a contemporary romantic mystery set in Ensenada, Mexico will be out in the fall of 2011. Memberships: Sisters in Crime, National Society of Southwestern Authors, Tucson, AZ. Arizona Mystery Writers Public Safety Writers 1st chapter Pres. of Cochise County, AZ chapter of Sisters in Crime from 2003-2005. Website: www.rpdahlke.com e-mail: [email protected] www.Facebook/ RP DAHLKE.com