Charlie Bright

First in a new series by the author of the Maisie Dobbs novels.

San Francisco, 1947: Twenty-seven-year-old British war bride Charlotte "Charlie" Bright believes she has been abandoned by her former G.I. husband, a charismatic charmer who departed on a "business trip" four weeks earlier, leaving Charlie with puzzling debts. But Charlie, a WWII veteran of the women's Auxiliary Territorial Service and the daughter of a London policeman, is no shrinking violet-as an expanding cast quickly discover.

While working in her new job as secretary to genial private investigator Gianni Murphy, they receive word that a body has been found dumped south of the City. Kicked into gear by this news and increasingly frustrated by police inaction in the search for her husband, Charlie is on a mission to find out what might have happened to him - a personal probe leading her to the Santa Clara Valley, where groundbreaking new industries are pushing out family farms. With the steadfast help of her two best friends and PI boss, Charlie is soon stirring up trouble with corrupt police, real estate sharks, journalists, socialites, adulterers and mobsters in her quest to uncover the truth about her missing husband.

Inspired by real events, Charlie Bright is a tour-de-force, shining the spotlight on a rapidly changing America. Most of all, it is a gripping tale of a powerful heroine demanding, and finding, justice.