Kingdom Road — K. Patrick Conner

In the tradition of James M. Cain comes this steamy noir novel of passion and betrayal set in California, Tijuana and New Orleans.

Winn Cahill returns to his Central Valley home town, irresistibly drawn by the memory of Liana, the woman he once loved. He arrives to find her a rich widow whose husband has died of a mysterious gunshot wound. One night, at her invitation, Cahill joins Liana at her late husband's ranch, where their passionate lovemaking is interrupted by her knife-wielding current lover, whom Liana promptly shoots in the back. Cahill's blinding passion leads him to take the blame for the murder. Now on the run through the dusty roads and seedy taverns of California and Mexico, he learns Liana may have set him up -- and still, he cannot stop loving her.

Like its rural California background, Kingdom Road is a novel of intense heat and quiet mystery that leaves the reader haunted by the vision of a beautiful and dangerous woman and the man ensnared in her web of love and conspiracy.