Malcolm Stallons

The Long, Cool Woman in the Black Dress Malcolm Stallons

Publisher Marketing: Washington, D. C., is a city full of secrets. While some deal with governance or national security issues, others are of a much more personal nature. Powerful people in the district sometimes kill to keep their secrets hidden. Twenty-five-year-old Bobby Ray Mason is a striking woman with long, shapely legs and curves in all the right places. She is known to Washington's powerful elite as a keeper of personal secrets. Her job as a high-end escort requires her to be. One night she stumbles across a secret with the potential to bring down a powerful senator, a top-notch lobbyist and others who will protect themselves even if doing so requires ending someone's life. After all, killing is a small price to pay for them to maintain power. But the elite aren't the only ones with a secret; Bobby Ray has her own. Ryan Crosby was an award-winning investigative reporter for a Washington-based newspaper. He was until short after Bobby Ray shared the senator's secret with him. An elaborate trap is set up for Crosby, one that discredits him as a journalist. In addition to losing the job he loves, Crosby has to wrestle with the issue of whether loving Bobby Ray is right for him. D. C. homicide detectives Danny Sebastian and Robert Hathaway are assigned to Bobby Ray's case. They take the lead in the investigation until they are ordered to stand down by a federal prosecutor who knows that one doesn't advance in Washington if they go against well-connected people like the senator and his friends. It becomes clear to Crosby that if Bobby Ray's killer is ever to be found, he will have to be the one who does it. Crosby uses his investigative skills to find out who killed his friend and why. Along the way, Crosby meets and is helped by a group of people many would generously call "unusual" characters. Dirty little secrets, everybody has them. Most of us try to keep our secrets from becoming public knowledge. A few, especially Washington's rich and powerful, are willing to kill to make sure they don't.