Cecil Younger Investigation Series

Cecil Younger, local Alaskan investigator, is neither good at his job nor great at staying sober. When an old Tlingit woman, unimpressed by the police's investigation, hires him to discover why her son, a big game guide, was murdered, he takes the case without much conviction that he'll discover anything new. But after a failed assassination attempt and the discovery of previously missed evidence, Younger finds himself traveling across Alaska to discover the truth in a midst of conspiracies, politics, and Tlingit mythology. High drama meets local color as Cecil Younger works to uncover the motive and identity of the killer.

When Louise Root, a new client of Cecil Younger, is found murdered, the private investigator finds himself in the middle of an environmental law violation that has deadly repercussions. Cecil finds he is unable to leave behind Root, especially after her ex-lover Hannah asks him for help. On top of it all, Global Mining, the company that runs the gold mine where Root's body was found, hires Younger to get the dirt on an environmentalist who has a connection to the victim. In the midst of all this, Cecil's personal life is fraying as he keeps secrets from his ward, Todd, and tries to keep his drinking under control. In the sequel to The Woman Who Married a Bear, Straley returns with his sensitive, if slightly unstable, investigator.

John Straley's fifth entry to the Alaska P.I. series finds Cecil Younger tracking down a murderer on an Alaskan cruise ship-not quite the vacation he was anticipating. Cecil Younger never thought it would come to this: providing surveillance for a chicken coop being raided by a fowl thief. But things have not exactly been breaking right lately for the Alaskan P.I. The logical thing to do? Take a vacation, of course. Well, it's not exactly a vacation. Younger has been paid to investigate a doctor aboard a luxurious first-class cruise ship up the Alaskan coast. Except passengers are dying. Now Younger finds himself trapped on a ship of fools with a murderer who is leaving a trail of well-to-do passengers in his wake . . . and leaving evidence pointing an accusing finger at Cecil! By the time the S.S. Westward makes landfall, Younger will be wishing he was back guarding chickens instead of sleeping with the fishes.

In the third entry to the series, Alaska P.I. Cecil Younger is fresh out of rehab, sporting a fresh head wound, with a child custody case from hell, and with the clients to match. Confrontational and obsessed, Priscilla DeAngelo is sure her ex is conspiring with a state senator to wrest her son from her, and thus, hires Cecil Younger to investigate. This is the first time Younger has to deal with lawyers in flashy suits and overused paper shredders. When she storms off to Juneau for a showdown, Younger's custody case swiftly turns into a murder. Younger is fired from the defense team, but he can't stop thinking about the case, and keeps on with the investigation alone. He's not sure what keeps him bulldogging the case-is it Priscilla's sister (his lost love)? His regard for truth as a rare commodity? Or the head injury Priscilla's ex gave him? One thing he knows: he won't let go until it's solved, even if it kills him.

The fourth entry to John Straley's Alaska P.I. series finds Cecil Younger with a contract to kill. Cecil Younger is a man that takes comfort in the absurdity of the universe, and the universe is obliging him when he gets a call from his lawyer and psychiatrist, who offers him a job. A client wants to hire Younger to kill someone. Though common sense tells him murder just isn't a good career move, his finances tell him it can't hurt to meet his potential client, hoping he can succeed in appeasing him-without a dead body. Joined by the usual cast of misfits-his lawyer/psychiatrist Dickie Stein, his girlfriend Jane Marie, and his ward Todd-Cecil investigates a murder that brings him back to the Centralia Massacre of 1919, an event in Alaskan history that seems to still be reaching into the present-and its dark, chilly grasp may extend to Cecil himself.

The sixth novel in John Straley's Alaska P.I. series takes Cecil Younger into rough waters as he grapples with his new life and past, unsolved murders. Three years ago someone brutally killed four people on the scow Mygirl. In a crowded courtroom, Cecil Younger helped the accused go free. Now the man charged with the Mygirl murders has disappeared. As a new father, Cecil just wants to move on from the Mygirl killings, but finds he can't just walk away when more and more people associated with the case end up suddenly, separately, but most assuredly dead. Younger is certain that someone is trying to finish the grisly job begun on the Mygirl. He must discover the truth behind what happened three years ago before he can settle what's happening now. With a storm headed straight for Sitka, he must chase down a wooden sloop on the wind-lashed sea. Out in the lethal storm Younger will come face-to-face with the shocking truth that has already twisted so many lives--and now could end his own.

Shamus Award-winner John Straley returns to his critically acclaimed Cecil Younger detective series, set in Sitka, Alaska, a land of perfect beauty and not-so-perfect locals. Criminal defense investigator Cecil Younger spends his days coaching would-be felons on how to avoid incriminating themselves. He even likes most of the rough characters who seek his services. So when Sherrie, a returning client with a good heart but a penchant for bad boys, asks him to track down some evidence that will help with her case, Cecil agrees. Maybe he'll find something that will get her abusive boyfriend locked up for good. Cecil treks out to the shady apartment complex she mentioned, only to find his teenage daughter, Blossom, inside. He manages to get both the box Sherrie wanted and his daughter safely home, and later discovers the "evidence" is a large pile of cash-fifty thousand dollars, to be exact. That is how Cecil finds himself in violation of one of his own maxims: Nothing good comes of walking around with a lot of someone else's money. In this case, "nothing good" turns out to be a deep freeze full of drug-stuffed fish, a murder witnessed at close range, and a kidnapping-Blossom is snatched as collateral for his cooperation. The reluctant, deeply unlucky investigator turns to an unlikely source for help: the misfit gang of clients he's helped to defend over the years. Together, they devise a plan to free Blossom and restore order to Sitka. But when your only hope for justice lies in the hands of a group of criminals, things don't always go according to plan.

The verdict from the three-judge panel is in. Cecil Younger, bumbling criminal defense investigator and totally embarrassing father, has been sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for his involvement in … well, a number of things, ranging from destruction of private property to killing a guy. But compared to the original twenty-five-year sentence, it’s not so bad. His success with getting his sentence reduced has attracted the attention of his fellow inmates, and one man, “Fourth Street,” reaches out for advice for his upcoming parole hearing in exchange for protection and companionship. When he isn’t reading Adrienne Rich or James Baldwin with Fourth Street, Cecil spends his time filling up large yellow legal pads. He writes, mostly, about his teenage daughter, Blossom, who is on a Nancy Drew–like quest to help her friend, George, discover the truth about her biological parents, which turns out to be complicated. After submitting a mail-in genetics test, George learns she is the infamous “Baby Jane Doe” who was kidnapped from her Native mother shortly after she was born. A media and legal circus quickly ensues, but George’s reunion with her birth family isn’t the heartwarming story the journalists hoped it would be. There is an even darker secret about the baby-snatching case, one that threatens to destroy not just George’s family—but Cecil’s as well.