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When investigative journalist and Black Lives Matter activist Aurora Jenkins gets too close to the truth about sex trafficking and the unsolved disappearances of young Black, Latina, Asian American, and Indigenous women from the streets of Oakland, California, a powerful alliance of organized crime, corrupt police, and elites seek to suppress her story. Sonny Trueheart, a former Oakland Police Department homicide detective and whistleblower, burdened by alcoholism and the ghosts of his past, is called to investigate Aurora’s disappearance and the facts behind her story. Together with his former martial arts teacher, a Bahamian human rights advocate, and an old friend with a propensity for gratuitous sex and violence, Sonny uncovers a vast criminal conspiracy. Armed with little more than his intuition, a snubnose revolver, and a willingness to break the law in order to bring justice, Sonny Trueheart emerges as a symbol of revolutionary awakening in the Black communities of Oakland, California.

The People’s Detective brings to light the under-reported stories of sex trafficking in the Bay Area and adds a distinctly Oakland aesthetic, martial arts mayhem, and the thrill of a bank heist to the ethos of the noir detective genre. It is the first installment in the Sonny Trueheart Mystery detective series.