Two modern noir mysteries by a writer whose promise was cut short. Dogtown: Whitney Logan, attorney-at-law, is broke. So when Monica Fullbright shows up with a $1,000 retainer to locate her missing housemaid, an illegal immigrant named Carmen, Whitney takes the job. She doesn't like playing sleuth, but she can't afford to be picky. Enlisting the aid of Lupe Ramos, a chicana prostitute, she stumbles on the housemaid's dead body. The unlikely pair find themselves on a fetid trail of Latin politics, drug smuggling and misguided allegiances. Soultown: Whitney Logan and Lupe have gone in different directions, both with dreams of a new start. But Whitney figures she owes Lupe something, and agrees to help her reunite her with her son, now living with Lupe's ex-boxer brother Hector and his new girlfriend in Koreatown. When they show up to get the boy, they find themselves in the midst of an armed robbery, a complicated theft involving old Korean friends who all have closely held secrets, where deception is the order of the day.