Fouled Out: a Gale Hightower mystery

It's an open and shut case. Everyone says the only question is whether Connor Braxton deserves to die for killing his girlfriend and a teammate. But reporter Gale Hightower's instincts tell her that there is more to this double murder - and more people involved in it. People who set things in motion that a college kid was powerless to stop. But can a killer be both guilty and innocent? In Fouled Out, a mystery about the shadowy intersection of greed, drugs and college sports, the answer is maybe......The evidence looks bad for the former Blue Ridge University basketball player, and at first Gale doesn't care. Connor, the only son of a wealthy Maryland family, is exactly the type of coddled, undisciplined, and marginally talented athlete Gale, a former Olympic swimmer who lost her shot at a medal, has always loathed. He should pay with everything he has for his crimes. However, when Gale sees that the Braxton family money isn't buying the expected top shelf defense for Connor and that jail has nearly halved the size of the once hulking athlete, she starts digging for the real story. Gale's search for answers takes her on a twisted journey where she discovers Connor was only one pawn in a game that went horribly wrong. As she connects more threads, Gale upsets a group of powerful men who will do anything to silence her and protect their awful project. Now, despite her preference to work solo and not dwell in the past, Gale will have to rely on new allies and old skills to survive, to find justice for Connor and his victims, and to destroy that project.Fouled Out is the first of a planned series of mysteries featuring 41-year-old Gale (who is always one step away from professional or personal failure for reasons both self-inflicted and not at all her fault) and her gay neighbor and best friend Leo, a beautiful young ballet dancer suffering from career-ending arthritis. Together they are a post-modern family, making a life out of odd bits and leftover parts, and made complete by a cockatiel named Hawk (the extent of Gale's divorce settlement) and Charlotte, a three-legged pit bull.