Rule of Capture
C. C. Julian, Oil Stock Conman
Los Angeles, 1927. Site of the C. C. Julian Petroleum stock scandal and the trial of the perpetrators. As a swindled investor, Sarah is there to witness what she hopes will be guilty verdicts all around. But when a Mexican woman claiming to know her winds up dead, Sarah faces a trial of her own, one that takes her from a comfortable L.A. hotel to the wilds of Tijuana. Angered by bigoted police who devalue a Mexican life, she commits herself, with the help of an alluring stranger, to finding the killer. But only after her beliefs are tested, after she is forced to confront her own biases, is she able to succeed in that quest.
IPPY 2016 Silver Medal for Regional Fiction
“A biting commentary on the uneasy truce between Latino Los Angeles and the city’s entrenched political, cultural and economic elites… Alternating between taut, suspenseful storytelling and lush descriptions, Russell eases her readers into a welcome literary escape with well-paced intrigue, surprising subterfuge, and gripping secondary story lines…"
"An entertaining whodunit with a striking protagonist and a compelling cultural backdrop...Russell intertwines fictional and non-fictional events in an engaging manner, weaving both the peculiar charms of early Hollywood and the real-life Julian petroleum scandal into her murder mystery."
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