San Francisco Secrets

Noted novelist and newspaper editor Edgar Watson Howe once said. “A man who can keep a secret may be wise but he is not half as wise as a man with no secrets to keep.” As the spring of 1958 arrives in San Francisco, it seems that baseball player turned private eye, Sam Slater and his fiancée, TWA stewardess Amelia Ryan, are surrounded by people who have secrets. A prominent doctor, John O’Dell is being blackmailed by someone who has discovered a dark secret from his past. When the private investigator trying to catch the blackmailer is murdered, Dr. O’Dell hires Sam Slater to try to pick up the pieces. Someone is playing for keeps and will do anything to protect their own secrets. Meanwhile, Amelia begins her new job as an international stewardess which takes her on adventures to New York City, London, Paris and Rome. In hot pursuit is a womanizing older pilot who has his sights set on Amelia. Their lives get even more complicated when a mysterious woman from Sam’s past returns. Sam and Amelia’s relationship will be tested as they work together to solve the mystery on the foggy streets of San Francisco.

Author Greg Messel brings readers another spectacular mystery novel to sink their teeth into with San Francisco Secrets, the third installment of his Sam Slater series. Combining the intrigue of late 50s noir with the excitement of a jet-setting adventure, lovers of the detective genre will love San Francisco Secrets. As spring arrives in San Francisco in 1958, Sam Slater, the inimitable baseball-player-turned-private-eye is about to embark on his greatest investigation to date, one that will turn his entire world upside down. Setting the scene with the blackmail of a prominent physician, John O’Dell, the private investigator hired to expose the blackmailer has been murdered, and Sam has been asked to take the case. At the same time, Sam’s TWA stewardess fiancée, Amelia, is being stalked all over the globe as a womanizing older pilot has set his sights on her. As she travels from New York to Paris, London to Rome, she is determined to help Sam while maneuvering her way out of the pilot’s clutches. To complicate their lives even further, a mysterious woman from Sam’s past reappears and tests the bonds of Amelia’s relationship with Sam. As the mysteries pile up, the blackmailer gets closer, and Sam and Amelia’s lives become more dangerous, the risks they take lead them on a deadly hunt in a race against time. After a shootout on Coit Tower and a terrifying ride down Telegraph Hill, Sam and Amelia realize that some people will do anything to keep their secrets hidden. A heart-pounding mystery that will have mystery lovers furiously flipping through pages to reach the shocking conclusion, San Francisco Secrets proves, once again, that Messel is truly a master of the genre.

Greg Messel grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and now lives in Edmonds, Washington, on the Puget Sound, with his wife, Carol. San Francisco Secrets is his sixth novel and is the third installment in the Sam Slater Mystery Series. Greg has lived in Oregon, Washington, California, Wyoming and Utah, and has always loved writing, including stints as a reporter, columnist and news editor for a daily newspaper.