Murder Over Cocktails

Private Investigator Nicoli “Nikki” Hunter, has recovered from a near fatal encounter with a multiple murderer, and is happy to get back to her regular bar and restaurant surveillance jobs. Unfortunately, the universe has other plans. One evening, (as she’s acting as a decoy/victim to attract a bartender bent on sexual harassment), Jack “The Cat” McGuire pulls up an adjacent bar stool and tells her a story that will alter the course of her life. Murder Over Cocktails is the second mystery featuring PI Nikki Hunter, a thirty-six-year-old gun-toting brainy beauty who excels at getting into other people’s business. Hunter's office is in a marina complex in Redwood City, California, where she also lives aboard a forty-six foot Cheoy Lee sailboat. Jack McGuire is a professional cat burglar who stumbled upon videotapes of five gruesome murders while robbing the killer’s house. In Murder Over Cocktails, Nikki divides her time between the complexities of her regular surveillance work and Jack’s case. He can’t go to the police for obvious reasons and, after their chance meeting in a bar, he hires Nikki hoping she can find a way to stop the predator before more lives are lost. At Nikki’s urging Jack returns to the killer’s home, steals and copies the tapes, and brings them to her office. Seeing the horror first hand, Nikki commits herself to stopping the monster who is responsible. Initially Nikki attempts to enlist the aid of her sometimes significant other, Redwood City Homicide Detective Bill Anderson, but he’s a by-the-book kind of cop, unwilling to break the rules, even for Nikki. So without any help from Bill or the police, Nikki must once again play the decoy/victim, this time putting her life on the line to catch a sadistic serial killer in the act.