What kind of life would you live if it was based on the bloodiest of lies? What lines would you cross to protect family interests? What risks would you take to expose facts people have killed to conceal? In PLATFORM, my debut 75,000-word commercial mystery, two reporters uncover a decades-long conspiracy when they investigate whether a family’s disappearance and a scientist’s murder are linked to an oil platform that’s being turned into an exclusive hotel.  

 

Los Angeles reporter Danny Kasho identifies human remains found in a lake in 55-gallon drums as members of a family that disappeared twenty years ago. An outspoken environmentalist dies in a crash that becomes a homicide investigation when reporter Ursula Ruda spots a bullet hole in the woman’s car. 

 

Competitors from the cutthroat local news scene whose working relationship is complicated by a recent fling, Danny’s and Ursula’s stories dovetail at an oil platform that’s being transformed into livable space—and the murky backgrounds of the people behind it. Sifting through layers of cover-ups and lifetimes of lies, Danny and Ursula unearth old secrets as they unravel new crimes—and threaten a billion-dollar project whose backers will kill for it to succeed.