Such a Deal: Three Nice Jewish Detectives

Description

Samson’s Deal by Shelley Singer
The first book in the hard-boiled but “wonderfully wry” adventures of ex-cop Jake Samson.

“Breathtaking action is offset by the wise-cracking Jake and Rosie. The tension will keep you reading all night long. Compelling characterization by Singer makes this series a must-read, with authentic details and witty dialogue.” —Mystery Time

Murder, politics, and strange bedfellows . . . Ex-Chicago-cop Jake Samson’s likely to lead with his easy-going Columbo style, but he’s earned a reputation for being a tough guy who occasionally “handles discreet matters.” Samson is drawn into Berkeley’s political hotbed when an old friend—a progressive political science professor—calls with an enticing offer. Seems the professor’s wife was found dead in the backyard of their Berkeley home, and he wants to pay Jake ten thousand dollars (plus expenses) to figure out whodunit.

With his good friend Rosie, and her justice-dispensing two-by-four, Samson follows a twisted trail that leads through the Bay Area’s bizarre cultural labyrinth, from pop meditation ashrams to neo-Nazi rallies, to the startling but all too human truth.

Sourdough Wars by Julie Smith
The second book in a series featuring funny, lively lawyer Rebecca Schwartz.

“An awful lot of fun, and it will make you unbearably hungry for fresh-baked bread.” —San Jose Mercury-News

To you, it’s just a frozen lump of dough; to some, it’s life and death . . .

Someone would even kill for it. And does.Enter lawyer sleuth Rebecca Schwartz, whose client is her own partner, glamorous Chris Nicholson, main squeeze of sourdough bakery scion Peter Martinelli, who plans to auction off his family’s fabled sourdough starter.

Rebecca noshes her way through the case in hilariously unorthodox style, tasting some great bread along the way, but also uncovering so many ancient jealousies, long-simmering feuds, and seething resentments that she barely escapes death by doughball.

Return to Sender by Dick Cluster
The first Alex Glauberman mystery.

He went to the post office . . . and ended up in Berlin.

“Raises the mystery to the realm of literature.” —Tony Hillerman

Meet reluctant detective Alex Glauberman—just a guy who fixes foreign cars, a 41-year-old divorced father with a brilliant British girl friend. But he’s got a complication right now—he’s trying to survive chemo. And then Gerald Meyer, a stranger he meets at the P.O., asks him to mail a package to Meyer’s daughter. Easily done, but too late, Meyer changes his mind.

And turns up dead.

PLUS Too Jewish by Patty Friedmann
Book 1 of The Cooper Family Saga.

Like Patty Friedmann’s father, young, brainy protagonist Bernie Cooper escapes Nazi Germany and ends up in New Orleans, where he finds a new kind of discrimination—in his own family! (Not a mystery, just a nice Jewish book.)