The Grande Meritage

The Grande Meritage is the first novel in new series, featuring Detective Jeremy King. 

“If Michael Tooney had anticipated the way the day would end for him, he might have taken the scenic route. He also might have taken the time to say goodbye to Dominique, and his soon to be stepson Chad before he rushed out the door. He definitely would not have stopped to have his aging car washed.”

With that opening paragraph—foreshadowing the first of three mysterious murders surrounding a luxury hotel—The Grande Meritage, my fast-paced noir-style detective novel, begins. 

Jeremy King has risen to the rank of Detective in the LAPD, but continues to fight demons that have tainted his career and personal life. Jeremy arrives at a downtown luxury hotel, The Grande Meritage, to head up an investigation into the gruesome murder and decapitation of Hal Stevens, a high-profile television personality, and part owner of the hotel. Jeremy is haunted by the fact that his grandfather investigated a murder, some ninety-years earlier, at the same hotel on its Grand Opening. That investigation did not go well for his grandfather. Jeremy’s investigation not only sets off a chain of events exposing corruption and greed within the hotel that spans generations, but his struggles as a gay man in what others in his family, and on the force, have told him is a straight man’s profession. 

Jeremy is upset that he has been paired on the investigation with his previous beat police partner Chris Lee, a funny, eccentric detective, and womanizer within the department. Chris, however, ultimately helps Jeremy solve not only his case, but the mystery behind why Jeremy’s grandfather was forced to stop his murder investigation at the same hotel. With Chris by his side, Jeremy also explores the unknown reasons for the outward hatred he experiences from a fellow detective that helped to convict his former fiancé, Terry Newton, of selling drugs to a minor. Chris becomes the yang to Jeremy’s yin. He helps him come to terms with the uncertain future of his relationship with Terry—while cautioning him as he explores another with a young handsome valet, Joey Ricci, that he meets as part of the murder investigation. 

The Grande Meritage, is a standalone book, but was written with the intent to be the first in a series. Each chapter ends with a cliffhanger, leading to a terrifying heart-pounding ending that ultimately helps the protagonist fully embrace who he is as a gay man, detective, and lover. 

This novel will appeal to readers of both commercial and LGBTQ detective/noir crime, mystery and thriller novels such as Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow, James Patterson’s, Instinct, A.J. Fin’s, The Woman in the Window, along with all readers that appreciate a deeply flawed protagonist, and the humor found in Andrew Sean Greer’s Pulitzer Prize novel, Less.