NOTORIOUS (DEATH BY COP Book 1)

Linda Mako Kendrick’s DEATH BY COP Series blends the elements of a Cozy-type Mystery with a Noir-type Crime Story as it chronicles the one-year period following a ‘Weapon Discharge Event’ which resulted in an ‘Officer-Induced Fatality’. These euphemisms translate to: ‘A cop shot him; he died.’ Officer Victoria Lynn Tremaine’s watershed year begins on Labor Day, 2018.

NOTORIOUS, the first book in The Death by Cop Series, follows both the investigation of and an investigation by Tori Tremaine, who begins the 25th year in her life by murdering a man (c'mon...you can't get more 'Femme Fatale' than that!). As is customary, one group of detectives is investigating the conditions that led to a police officer’s use of deadly force, and another group of detectives is investigating the death itself. While these two groups are pursuing their separate investigations, Officer Tori Tremaine is required to comply with department regulations, which include visits to a psychiatrist and restriction to desk duty. Screw-Up that she is, Tori ends up at a crime scene interviewing a suspect, and making an arrest. Tori’s investigation (and her efforts to mis-direct the other investigations) winds through a tail-gater at a Browns game, a retired actress with Alzheimer’s, a politician’s trophy wife, a six-year-old girl who heard zombies, and a bargain-basement hitman. Will she win? If it were a straight Cozy Mystery, of course she’d win. If it were a straight Noir Crime Story, of course she’d lose. But this is a Cozy/Noir, so…Both? Neither? One, but not the other? Or is there some way to screw it up? If so...well, Tori is the Protagonist, the Femme Fatale, the Detective, the Heroine, the Criminal (well...one of them) and first and foremost -- her own worst enemy.

NOTORIOUS is a novella, set in Cleveland, Ohio. It is available as an e-book and as a paperback.