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Warren C Easley

When nothing is as it seems, can the truth survive?

Attorney Cal Claxton, now well-established in his Oregon law practice after breaking off his career as a high-powered LA prosecutor, just wants to go fishing with his daughter, Claire, and he knows the best place—the coastal area south of Coos Bay. But their vacation takes a dark turn with the discovery of a body in the river.

As an investigation is launched into the suspicious death, Cal and Claire find themselves drawn into the life of the local bookshop owner and vocal environmental activist, whose grandson was convicted for murder at age sixteen. She believes he was wrongly accused and convinces Cal to reexamine the case. Together, Cal and Claire dig deep into the secrets and crumbling alliances that form the foundation of this small coastal community, and what they find could spell doom for them both...

Poisoned Pen Press

Cal Claxton Mysteries

No Way to Die

"Lawyer Cal is an appealing knight in rusty armor, seeking justice for the most vulnerable...Easley exquisitely captures Portland's flavor, and his portrayal of street life is spot-on. Readers of John Hart and Kate Wilhelm will delight in trying a new author." —Library Journal

In his first case in private practice, Oregon lawyer Cal Claxton came to the aid of a tagger calling himself Picasso, a Banksy-like figure in Portland. Dividing his time between a wine-country town and the city, the ex-L.A. prosecutor now encounters another urban teen at risk, Kelly Spence, also a tagger. Using climbing skills learned from her much-loved deceased father, a mountaineer, Kelly places angry tags in visible, hard-to-reach places. A runaway from an abusive foster home and alternative high school student, she lives with her father's former girlfriend.

Kelly is four stories up at 3:00 one morning when she looks down and witnesses the brutal murder of a woman in the parking lot below. Unluckily the killer spies her but Kelly escapes. The police soon seek her as a witness. Desperate to stay anonymous, she seeks help from someone on the street she trusts. Too soon she finds his mutilated body and becomes even more afraid.

Cal is drawn into the case by his volatile Cuban friend and landlord who is devastated by the murder: the dead woman had just become his fiancée. Her ex is the obvious suspect, but Cal's instincts lead him in a different direction where he will run into Kelly. Can he get her to talk, or will the killer find her first?

Never Look Down

When the American Dream becomes a nightmare…

Running a one-man law practice in the heart of Oregon's wine country, Cal Claxton hires a young, undocumented man as an assistant, hoping to give him an opportunity to create more stability for himself and his family. Timoteo Fuentes is a bright, hardworking student by day and Cal's legal clerk by night, juggling both roles with determination and grit. When one of Timoteo's family members is brutally murdered, the migrant community is reluctant to cooperate with the police investigation for fear of deportation.

Devastated by the loss and nervous about engaging with the legal system, the family turns to Cal for help. With Timoteo protected as a "Dreamer" from deportation, the two begin a dangerous investigation of ruthless people who leverage the fear of a vulnerable population for profit and an assassin who is as cunning as he is deadly. Can Cal and Timoteo untangle the web of deceit or will they become victims themselves?

No Witness

Who can you turn to when society spits you out?

Former LA prosecutor Cal Claxton has escaped to the Oregon wine country after his wife's suicide, determined to live a less-harried life. He's gotten a dog for company and takes pleasure in simple things like hiking, fishing, and crafting gourmet meals from the area's bounty, which he enjoys with local wines. He has no career ambitions, other than to sustain a small practice that will allow him to pay his bills. Then he's approached by a homeless street artist from Portland who wants him to take on the cold case investigation of his mother's murder. The young man believes his mother's boyfriend killed her eight years earlier, but the police were never able to solve the case. Cal turns him away. But his conscience won't let him rest…

Cal takes on the case against his better judgment. Soon, however, the street artist is charged with the boyfriend's murder, and Cal has to battle bias from the press, police, and public, along with his own doubts about his client in order to determine who has committed both crimes—and why.

Matters of Doubt

"With Moving Targets, Warren Easley delivers another humdinger of a tale featuring the City of Roses. But there's so much more to like about this story than just its evocative Portland setting. Cal Claxton is a guy worth rooting for, and the gang who aid him in solving the complex and dangerous mystery involved are a fun bunch to follow. If you're not familiar with these gems out of Oregon, now's the perfect time to give Warren Easely and Cal Claxton a try. You won't be disappointed." —William Kent Krueger, award-winning, bestselling author of Ordinary Grace and the Cork O'Connor series

When a young woman walks into Caffeine Central, Cal Claxton's law office in downtown Portland, he has no idea that agreeing to help her will turn his life upside down. His new client is the adopted daughter—"I'm brown and they're white"—of a Portland power couple famed for their real estate development firm and charitable work.

Sculptor Angela Wingate, once a wild child, and her recently widowed mother, Margaret, had grown close after years of estrangement. A grieving Angela is hesitant but nonetheless determined to learn if Margaret's recent death was a hit-and-run while out on her morning jog in her ritzy neighborhood, or something more—like murder. Angela is frustrated at the lagging police investigation and by her growing sense of something sinister at work.

As the ever-curious Cal begins to poke the principal players at Wingate Properties and to question Margaret's will, links surface between a lucrative riverfront project and a ruthless Russian ring. With a possible deadly foreign assassin in play, the threat level rises and the body count starts to grow.

Decidedly outgunned, Cal enlists his Cuban friend Nando, an enterprising investigator with an on-call hacker, and a bouncer at a strip club who knows the Russian underworld. And Cal gradually develops other allies—a skeptical police captain and a city councilwoman who opposes the massive riverfront project. In a separate battle, he recruits neighbors and officials who may help him kill the reboot of a quarry operation that threatens his beloved farmhouse home in rural Dundee, a loss that would also be tragic for his beloved dog, Archie.

Beneath this story run the narratives of several strong women connected to Cal who are learning just how powerful they can be as they change up their lives.

Moving Targets

"A fast-paced, tightly woven who-dunnit that kept me guessing to the end. Easley's vivid landscapes and well-drawn characters evoke comparisons to James Lee Burke, and Cal Claxton is as determined and resourceful as Burke's Dave Robicheaux." —Robert Dugoni, New York Times bestselling author

Cal Claxton—a former LA prosecutor now practicing law in Oregon's wine country and who works to fish—has to pinch himself when his best friend Philip Lone Deer asks him to assist guiding a group of executives from a high tech firm in Portland. For a fly fisherman, it doesn't get any better than the salmon fly hatch on the Deschutes River, Oregon's legendary trout fishing venue.

The execs, however, aren't coming just to fish. They're engaging in a conflict-resolution exercise where the future of the firm is to be determined. And Cal learns, too late, that the company's CEO is bringing his wife, the woman with whom Cal had a fling after their last Lone Deer-guided fishing trip. Cal soon broke it off, but....

The trip through the remote Deschutes Canyon turns ugly when CEO Hal is murdered during the first night's camp. Everyone in the party is a suspect, especially Cal. And his knife and vest have disappeared. Does the fact that the company's value is about to explode play into the crime? What about the freight line running along the river? Could a hired killer have come and gone from the scene of the crime by hopping trains? As two local cops come down heavily on Cal, can he come up with a water-tight solution as he did in the tricky Portland case Matters of Doubt?

Dead Float

Nero Wolfe Award Finalist for 2018

"Oenophiles and aspiring vintners will enjoy the wine lore in this well-wrought tale of love and betrayal." —Publishers Weekly

Cal Claxton's old farmhouse sits high in Oregon's Red Hills, home of scores of wineries and some of the most coveted acreage for growing the pinot noir grape in the world. Former Los Angeles prosecutor Cal settled in this haven to reboot his life as a widower, growing a small practice that includes some pro bono work in nearby Portland. Life is good, filled with food, wine, and friends. But this beautiful area is not the idyllic haven it appears to be.

When Cal's neighbor, Jim Kavanaugh, the owner and gifted vintner of an up-and-coming winery, is accused of murdering his wife, his freedom—and the grape harvest—is suddenly in jeopardy along with his reputation, and his business begins to slide. No gentleman farmer, this puts the rugged winemaker's property, his only financial asset, in play. When a blackmail plot is hatched against the owner of adjacent land, it begins to look like a brutal game of real-life Monopoly is underway.

Cal agrees to defend Jim, a good friend, which pulls him reluctantly into the blackmail plot. Emotions are running high over Lori Kavanaugh's bloody death. There is no shortage of suspects. There may be more than the one game in play. And defending Jim might well make Cal the next target of a vicious, cunning killer.

Cal Claxton Mysteries - The book series

Cal Claxton Mysteries - The book series

Cal Claxton Mysteries books in order

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