For Lennox Cooper, helping out a friend means gambling with her life.

In the rainy city of Portland, Matilda Bauer has been blackmailing her parole officer, Fulin Chen. Just when Fulin’s ready to come clean, Matilda disappears. Bad news for Fulin, because once Matilda is arrested for breaking parole she’ll show the photos she has on him and end his career. Fulin turns to his longtime friend and poker buddy, Lennox Cooper, P.I., to help him find the beautiful blonde con-woman.

A former cop, Lennox knows how it feels to live and breathe the police life—and to be thrown out of it. She'll do anything to help her friend avoid a similar fate. But three days later Lennox finds Matilda dead, in what looks like a sex game gone terribly wrong. Fulin Chen is the lead suspect. Lennox's search for Matilda, however, causes her to begin turning over rocks, finding that her past lies under many of them—not to mention deadly threats. Matilda Bauer had no shortage of enemies, though, and Lennox will have to sift through the many blackmail victims and jilted lovers to find the real killer.

Like many writers before her, Lily Gardner has spent much of her life as a factotum, working as a bartender, a vet assistant and a bookkeeper. She’s managed a bookstore, sold crystals, herbs and fine jewelry. And has written articles on mythology and goddess lore for ten years.

Lily's first novel, A Bitch Called Hope, is a noir mystery set on the rainy streets of Portland, Oregon. Her second novel, Betting Blind, will publish in March, 2016. Lily lives in Portland with her husband, two corgis and several thousand books.