Francie LeVillard is the great-granddaughter of Francois Le Villard, the renowned detective with the Deuxieme Bureau in Paris who worked closely with Sherlock Holmes a century earlier. Francie got her professional start on the East Coast, working in television news. But after ten years in the biz, during which time she picked up a number of prestigious awards for her journalism, Francie decided that she'd had enough of the style-over-substance attitude that plagued the mainstream media. So she moved to a small house on a high bluff overlooking the Pacific, just south of the Carmel Highlands. She resumed her aikido training at the local dojo, and enjoyed life, taking long walks by the ocean, shopping at the farmers' market every week, and playing in the kitchen. She thought she would made a dent in the towering pile of must-read books that had grown over the years. But in no time at all, the genes of her forebear kicked in, and she found herself engrossed in - and resolving - a number of important cases. It had never been her intention, but she would up hoisting, proverbially, a shingle that read "Consulting Detective" above her door. It's how life works. This is Volume One of The Francie LeVillard Mysteries series."