Michael Brandman

The woman on the bed was barely out of her teens. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she’d tried to make the most of her looks. And now, alone in a seedy beachfront motel, she was dead. Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone doesn’t know her name. Whoever she is, she didn’t deserve to die...

Steel has been content working homicide at the LAPD until his father, the legendary Sheriff Burton Steel, falls ill with Lou Gehrig's disease....

When legendary Sheriff Burton Steel summoned his son Buddy home from LAPD Homicide, a reluctant Buddy agreed. Burton is debilitated by ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease.

When San Remo County Acting Sheriff Buddy Steel is deputized by the California Coastal Commission to investigate a reclusive Russian billionaire who has repeatedly violated state law by obstructing public access to his vast beachfront property, he makes a shocking discovery.

Buddy Steel's maverick behavior as a police officer has won his commander's respect and a promotion to LAPD homicide detective. Almost immediately, he is asked to join a task force working to bust a major meth shipment to LA from Mexico.

Buddy Steel, acting Sheriff of Freedom, California, is enjoying some well-deserved R&R at a friend's mountain hideaway when he's called home to investigate a home invasion—at his father's address. The break-in is just one in a series, perpetrated by ingeniously inventive burglars.