Jim Sargent

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Two days before Christmas in 1945, Mickey Mathews, the celebrated novelist, learned about the Sara Strauss Clarkston missing-persons case. Last seen with Cassius Cisco, actor and paramour, Sara went missing in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve of 1933. Mickey accepted the cold case when Chet Clarkson, Sara’s son, telephoned his cousin and Mickey's wife, Patty Mathews, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on December 23, 1945. As a result, Mickey agrees to investigate Sara's disappearance. He flies to San Francisco on December 27, arranging for Patty to fly later. They hope to reconcile Chet with his sister Rita, but Rita was having a secret affair with the handsome Cisco.

Once in California, Mickey meets Chet Clarkston as well as the Navajo family of Lorenzo Goodwin. But soon Rita is kidnapped. Mickey discovers that Sara’s disappearance in 1933 was linked to the Clarkston’s Redwood timber lands and an ancient gold map as well as to the ruthless Cisco and his henchmen. Pressed for time, Mickey, Chet, Lorenzo, and their friends must find the missing Rita and solve the Sara Clarkston mystery before anyone else is murdered.