Virtual Death: An Inspector Martinet Mystery

It is five years in the future. Marvelous advances in technology have offered new ways to get rich. This itself has led to new opportunities for criminals, and the understaffed San Francisco Police Department has little choice but to allow their detectives more latitude in dealing with them.

It is New Year's eve and a college student who had won a night of free Virtual Reality gaming dies in the same way as his avatar in the game. Fran Martinet, a black detective who has repeatedly gone her own way to hold the rich and powerful accountable for their crimes, is assigned the case and learns that a notoriously racist billionaire has funded the group behind these games. Soon enough she is caught up in a world of international intrigue in which her only protection turns out to be the same man she has boldly confronted at the annual celebration of the January 6 assault on the Capitol.