"Suicide was all the rage in L.A. the summer of '39."
 

When an oddball sister and brother hire him to find out if their father's suicide was suicide, private investigator Nate Ross figures he's in for an easy job. That is, until he discovers that the evidence doesn't add up and the cops - who are strangely cooperative - have rubber-stamped the case and filed it away.

Soon Nate's dealing with crooks on the lam, dodging local bigwigs and shady lawyers, and chasing a clear-cut case of murder. Meanwhile, he wrestles with a conflict of interest as he's forced to investigate his own client.

The more threads he pulls, the more things threaten to unravel completely. But with the help of old sidekicks, and a couple of new ones, Nate may get to the truth first. If he doesn't die trying.

March 1939, and try as he might, private eye Nate Ross can't seem to stay clear of Hollywood. His latest case, a penny-ante theft caper, turns deadly serious when one of the miscreants is murdered and Nate's the prime witness. No sooner does LAPD's number one suspect - a former friend and disgraced ex-colleague - turn up asking for Nate's help than he goes on the run again, from both the police and Nate.

Nate's forced to come to terms with more than one ghost from his past as his struggle to prove his on-the-lam client's innocence brings him up against hostile cops, a pair of rolling assassins, film pirates, mobsters, and a girl who may need his help or may be playing him for a chump.

Against his better judgment, Hollywood-hating private investigator Nate Ross takes on a Tinseltown case in the spring of 1938. It sounds like a milk run: find an alcoholic screenwriter whose absence is stalling production on Republic Pictures' latest Western.

But when the missing rummy turns up dead, and Nate learns that somebody's going to lethal lengths to keep Stardust Trail from being made, his simple case becomes far more complex, and deadly. He finds himself traveling in unfamiliar territory: the world of B-movie cowboys, and the lines between the "reel" West and the real West begin to blur as Nate wrangles a twisted case of murder and sabotage pointing back nearly forty years to a bloody, real-life "Wild West" crime.

Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Wild Bill Hickok: most people could recount at least a few details of such celebrated Old West figures whose fame rests mainly upon their exploits as lawmen. Though they are icons today, these men represent only a small fraction of the vast number who risked everything to bring law and order to the frontier. Many other "law dogs" of the untamed West engaged in exploits rivaling or surpassing those of their renowned contemporaries, yet their names are little, if at all, known today. They've been overlooked, forgotten, or - in the parlance of their day - "disremembered." A key reason is that many of these men died in the line of duty, careers and lives cut short and any chance at lasting glory buried with them. They were truly "the numberless unknown heroes, equal to the greatest heroes known."

This book is intended as a tribute to such men, giving a small sampling of them - fourteen in all - their long-awaited due. In these accounts of their careers and untimely deaths, readers will find true tales as exciting and engaging as any told about the usual suspects - already the heroes of countless dime novels, books, films, and television shows.

New York City orphan Joe Monday dreams of finding a family and of being a cowboy. Things look up when he's sent West on an "orphan train," until he ends up with a pair of pig farmers who only want the free labor he provides. Joe runs away with a cattle drive headed north from Texas, though the cowboys are unsure of their young tag-along. But when disaster strikes, Joe proves that even a kid can be a hero, and learns that dreams really can come true.

The 500-acre Los Rios Rancho has operated through a greater century as the largest apple orchard in Southern California and the centerpiece of Oak Glen, the heart of a dozen orchards on the southern slopes of the San Bernardino Range about eight miles from Yucaipa. Los Rios Rancho is owned by the Wildlands Conservancy, a privately funded corporation headquartered at Oak Glen since 1996 that has purchased more than 750,000 California acres to preserve as natural landscapes for public benefit. The ranch is leased today to the Devon Riley family, which carries on in the tradition of the ranch's founder, H. L. Rivers. The Rivers family--la familia de los Rios--has been a fruit label name known throughout California grocery stores and roadside stands since before World War I. In this collection, more than 180 vintage photographs pay tribute to the Rivers, Wilshire, and other family orchards at Oak Glen over the years.

Who has ever seen a faded photograph from bygone days without wondering about the people pictured - whom they were, how they lived, what became of them? Which of us has toured a historic building and never once thought, if these walls could talk…?

Emily Primm has. A thoroughly modern New York girl devoid of such childlike imagination, she sees herself as an adult trapped in a ten-year-old’s body. She’s never more anxious to slip the bonds of childhood than at Christmas, when all the grownups around her seem to become kids themselves. However, when she’s given an unusual gift - a dollhouse that once belonged to a great-great grandmother, Emily’s intrigued. She’s inexplicably drawn to the heirloom, so much so that she finds herself whisked away to the house's real-life counterpart thirty miles - and more than a hundred years - from home...