A satire on California featuring two TV journalists, one a Chicano, the other his Japanese-American girlfriend. The novel has many characters, plots and themes. One plot deals with the smuggling of body parts, another with illegal immigration, a third with the export of poisoned oranges, a fourth with poverty.

In Southern California, reporter Irene Kelly investigates why an estranged aunt left a fortune to her, rather than to her son. As she digs, skeletons come tumbling out the family cupboard.

"Facing daunting prospects after losing a prestigious job, a once-successful science reporter investigates the suspicious death of his college roommate, a Miami Beach plastic surgeon, in an all-or-nothing case that is shaped by the schemes of the reporter's political dissident father." --

"Key West, 1936. Headstrong, accomplished journalist Martha Gellhorn is confident with words but less so with men when she meets disheveled literary titan Ernest Hemingway in a dive bar. Their friendship--forged over writing, talk, and family dinners--flourishes into something undeniable in Madrid while they're covering the Spanish Civil War. Martha reveres him. The very married Hemingway is taken with Martha--her beauty, her ambition, and her fearless...

The cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church have gathered in Rome to elect a new pope. A group of moderates and their candidate is being opposed by shadowy Vatican forces. Chicago clerics, Cardinal Cronin and his aid Bishop John Blackwood, and two reporters investigate those forces.

"[A]fter three decades of absence, Julia's conman father has resurfaced to throw her life into turmoil again. Julia was only seven when Duke Gooden abruptly left. Barely a month later, her nine-year-old brother, Ben, disappeared. Ben was her hero and protector, and though the case is cold, Julia has never given up hope of finding him. Duke's return offers vital clues--but it also makes her a target of those who intend to see Duke punished for his...

"When her husband's indiscretion with a young staffer threatens to ruin everything she has accomplished, Jody Asher, the wife of a political icon, flips the narrative as the balance of power shifts when he suddenly dies, securing the future she's entitled to despite her secret."--

"No one is more surprised than Colleen Collins when she's offered a job writing fluffy magazine articles about rural Texas cooking. But after only a few days in the charming little town of San Saline, the big-city reporter is falling for the local residents, and finding it impossible to resist the infuriating True McKittrick, a local boy-made-good whose mere presence makes her feel alive ... and at home."--Publisher description

"When reporter Rebecca Connolly gets a tip that suspected murderer Roddie Drummond will be returning to the island of Stoirm, she smells a story. Though never convicted in the death of his girlfriend Mhairi fifteen years earlier, Drummond is still guilty in the eyes of many islanders, and his return for his mother's funeral is sure to stir up old resentments, hatreds, possibly even violence. Rebecca has another reason for going to Stoirm. Her own...

A socialite-reporter and her network-owning boss rekindle an old romance, but when she starts investigating his jealous ex-wife's TV ministry, dangerous passions stir.