Nightshade by Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly has written 39 crime novels including the well-known Boush and Lincoln Lawyer series. Nightshade is based on a totally new character (Detective Stilwell) in a situation that screams: “Everything is not always as it appears”.

He was reassigned to Catalina Island from LAPD. This should be a break from the evil big city, but is it?

While following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor— a Jane Doe identifiable at first only by a streak of purple dye in her hair. At the same time, a report of poaching on a protected reserve turns into a case fraught with violence and danger as Stilwell digs into the shady past of an island bigwig. Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, Stilwell doggedly works both cases.

Though hampered by an old beef with an ex-colleague determined to thwart him at every turn, he is convinced he is the only one who can bring justice to the woman known as “Nightshade.”