I have a new addiction, Janet Dawson’s Jeri Howard PI novels. Kindred Crimes is the first in the series, winner of the St. Martin’s Press/Private Eye Writers of America Best First PI contest. The book came out in 1990, and went on to be nominated for the Anthony, Macavity and Shamus Awards for Best First Novel. Out of curiosity, I checked the award winners. Walter Mosely won the Shamus for Best First Novel for Devil in a Blue Dress. Patricia Cornwell won the Anthony and Macavity for Postmortem. It was a strong year for debuts. Diane Mott Davidson’s first Goldy Bear mystery also was a nominee that year for Best First Novel.

Jeri Howard’s ex-husband, Sid Vernon, a sergeant with the Oakland Police Department’s Homicide Section, sent her the case. Philip Foster’s wife, Renee, disappeared, leaving their baby with Philip’s mother, and cleaning out their joint account. He wants Jeri to find his missing wife. It isn’t as simple as it sounds. There was no record of Renee Mills being born in an Oakland hospital at the time Philip says. But, Philip seems to know very little about his wife’s past. And, Foster’s father doesn’t want to know more. Jeri is the second private investigator hired by Philip Foster, and the second one fired when Philip’s father gets involved.

By that time, Jeri is too intrigued to want to give up the case. She’s learned Renee Mills was really Elizabeth Renee Willis, and the name Willis rang a bell. Fifteen years earlier, Mark Willis confessed he shot and killed both of his parents. Elizabeth was his younger sister, only fourteen at the time. The family was a Navy family assigned to the air station at Alameda. The case sounded familiar to Jeri because she went to high school with Mark Willis. Although Mark was sentenced to life imprisonment at San Quentin, he had been paroled three years earlier. Now, his sister has disappeared.

Although Philip Foster fired Jeri, it isn’t long before she has a new client who wants to find the missing woman. For her own satisfaction, Jeri wants answers. “I always invest a piece of myself in my work. That’s what gives me the edge, the impetus I need to see a case from start to finish.”

I like Jeri Howard. She’s a tough investigator, although she knows she makes mistakes. When two men attack her, she never saw them coming. But, she’s determined to find answers. Jeri deserves to be read along with the private investigators that came a decade before her; Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone, Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski. I wonder if Janet Dawson’s Jeri Howard would be remembered if Kindred Crimes had won just one of those awards in 1991.

Janet Dawson’s website is https://www.janetdawson.com/

Kindred Crimes by Janet Dawson. St. Martin’s Press, 1990. ISBN 9780312044640 (hardcover), 260p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I uploaded the first four e-books in the series at no cost.