Natural Causes — Jonathan Valin

Detective Harry Stoner has seen too much of the seamy side of life not to notice the tarnish on Los Angeles's glitter or the gritty reality behind the never-never land of TV's biggest daytime soaps.

A detergent manufacturer, already begrimed by scandal and rumor, doesn't want his image further muddied by the mysterious death of the head writer on the daytime series he sponsors. So it's up to Stoner to find out what really happened that sunny August weekend when Quentin Dover took his last shower.

What Stoner uncovers is a slick world of high finance and low morals, all powered with cocaine...a sexy blond widow turned on by booze and boys...the broken lives of the men and women who create America's TV fantasies...and the perfect setting for greed, jealousy, and murder.