Detective Lincoln Series
About the Detective Lincoln
The Detective Lincoln Series is about the cases, usually high-profile, that retired Detective William Monroe Lincoln is hired to investigate when the local authorities fail to solve a murder investigation. Detective Lincoln rose through the police ranks of Oakland, CA to the rank of Detective and eventually took an early retirement. The detective developed a reputation as a ‘straight shooter’, a non-partisan, an individual that can stay focused on the facts and not the emotions of a case. The detective, at times, has a helper, his friend ‘Lenny’. When Bill Lincoln served in Vietnam as a commander, Lenny was in his platoon and was considered a soldier’s soldier…a person who followed the commands of their superior officer unquestionably.
Lenny was a mid-westerner, a farm boy, and he had the best skills in tracking, hunting, and shooting than anyone. He was six-foot five in tremendous physical shape. His hand to hand combat skills were exceptional. He also became handicapped during the war. He was injured by a head wound and the result of his operation was the loss of his short-term memory. When he wakes up each day, he cannot remember the day before. He currently resides in a California psychiatric hospital and on occasion, when Detective Lincoln needs ‘muscle’, he’ll go get Lenny. Lenny is Detective Lincoln’s ‘equalizer’ when circumstances brings him into contact with people who usually rely on physical intimidation to subdue their opponents. Detective Lincoln faces a moral challenge at times when he brings Lenny into the fray. Normally Lenny’s mere presence can ‘tame’ a situation, but there are times when the detective may have to unleash the full physical powers of Lenny to save his own life or those of others. So far, Lenny has avoided injury from the few physical encounters he’s been involved in, but that worry is always on the detective’s mind.
Detective Lincoln’s career started with his first case and which is chronicled in the first book…The Oakland Hills Vodou Murders. The novel is about the murder of Hillary Chatham Dillard, an interracial co-ed at an affluent college campus in California’s Oakland Hills. The body, covered in duck feathers with a majestic mallard duck head protruding from her mouth, was discovered after an annual alumni affair. Was it voodoo…or as pronounced in Caribbean slang…vodou?
Retired Detective Lincoln entered the case after a three-month unsuccessful police investigation. Detective Lincoln delves into the quirks and quagmires of suspects with monetary and social affluence, alleged Mafia connections, local explosive politics, and the necromantic elements of voodoo. Two voodoo practitioners provide conflicting opinions. Which one, if either, speaks the truth? And, there’s the memorable Lenny who is brought into the case.
The affluent Dillard family demand to know their daughter’s murderer. They have three remaining children: the eldest, Franklin Jr., is running for high political office; Monique, a design engineer, is stunning and; Radcliffe, the youngest, is a ladies man with neither career ambitions nor job supporting his lavish lifestyle.
The landscape is the beautiful hills of Oakland, California where the affluent and the powerful sit ruling their flat land subjects to the murky crevices and dark corners of the New Orleans’ bayou. It is here, in the Louisiana terrain, where superstition supersedes reality and having a gun may not be enough!
The following books are each about a separate case that the local police cannot solve and Detective Lincoln is hired to help. There is no reason that the books must be read in order since each is independent of the others. But the author recommends book one since that is the genesis of Detective Lincoln’s career.