Forrest, Katherine V.

 It's been years since I read any of Katherine V. Forrest's Kate Delafield police procedural novels, so I was pleased to see them next on the list.  

In Amateur City, LAPD homicide detective Kate Delafield arrives at the scene of a homicide in the building of the Modern Office corporation, where an overbearing, much hated manager has been stabbed to death.  The early hour of the murder and building security features limit the pool of suspects to the upper level managers, all of whom had reason to hate the victim.  More than just a routine police procedural, the book explores the internal police culture as it affects lesbian and gay police officers.  Grade:  A.  

Investigating Murder At The Nightwood Bar, homicide detective Kate Delafield finds a young lesbian murdered in the bar's parking lot with her own baseball bat.  Although initially suspicious and unhelpful, the bar's lesbian customers warm up to Kate after she fights off an attempted kidnapping of one of the women by a gang of young homophobes.  WARNING:  this book contains descriptions of sexual child abuse.  Grade:  A.  

Someone has killed a resident of The Beverly Mailbu and sat and watched during the three hours it took him to die.  The victim turns out to have been an informer during the dark days of the McCarthy Communist witch hunt era that affected the lives of many people working in the motion picture industry, including some of the other residents of the building.  Grade:  A.

Sleeping Bones entangles Kate in a web of international intrigue when an ancient fossil is found at the scene of a murder at the tar pits of Rancho La Brea.  Is the fossil real or a fake, and who is it that cares so much about it, anyway?  I found the plot of this one a bit more difficult to believe, but it's still an engrossing mystery.  Grade:  B.