Charlie Mack Motown Mystery

Charlene "Charlie" Mack is a PI in Detroit, born and raised in the city that America forgot. Charlie has built a highly respected private investigations firm through hard work, smart choices, and relentless ambition. Her team of investigators are highly skilled and trustworthy-but she secretly struggles with her sexual orientation and a mother with early-onset Alzheimer's. When Charlie and her crack team head to Birmingham, Alabama, following the trail of a missing person, what should be a routine case turns into a complex chase for answers. Shady locals and a southern patriarch with dark secrets dating back forty years obscure their path. It seems like everyone has something to hide, including Charlie. When the case turns deadly with a double murder and Charlie is attacked on a quiet neighborhood street, everything suddenly becomes personal. Who can Charlie trust, and will she ever solve the riddles of the Magic City? "Bury Me When I'm Dead by Cheryl Head is a good old-fashioned whodunit, starring a cast of well-developed characters that help to ground its complex plot." "Detroit-based PI Charlene 'Charlie' Mack struggles with her sexuality and her ailing mother as she investigates a missing persons case in Birmingham, Alabama. A compelling mystery debut."

Born and raised in Detroit, the city that America forgot, Charlene "Charlie" Mack has built a highly respected private investigations firm through hard work, smart choices, and relentless ambition. When Charlie and her team of investigators are asked to take on a seemingly impossible case—to identify and thwart an attack on the upcoming Detroit Auto Show—it takes a $100K incentive and the help of a dozen freelancers for Charlie and her crew to unravel a twisted plot that runs through several countries and many more bank accounts. But finding out who's behind the intricate plot only solves half the problem. Charlie and her crew are drawn into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as they try to locate dozens of hidden bombs before they can be detonated in an arena full of hundreds of people.

Someone is murdering the homeless in Detroit's Cass Corridor―by immolation. These horrific crimes wouldn't require an investigation by Charlie Mack and her crack team investigators, except that one of the burned bodies is her mother's friend. There's a lot wrong with this case: the police won't admit a serial killer is on the loose, drug trafficking intersects with the deaths, and a rogue cop is involved. The timing also couldn't be worse―Charlie and Mandy are finally moving in together. This case becomes the most difficult of Charlie's career when she transforms herself into a street person, and mixes with the corridor's gangs, do-gooders, and the down-and-out to uncover evidence the police can't continue to ignore.

When a guilt-ridden client has an unexpected change of heart, the Mack team's careful preparation for his grand jury testimony is blown to smithereens. Now, Charlie and Gil must pull out all the stops to defend him from his new enemies and the estrangement of his father. Meanwhile, Charlie reports for jury duty and unwittingly begins to unravel a disturbing plan to alter the outcome of a crime lord's conspiracy trial. Before she knows it, Charlie's dangerous meddling lands a bullseye squarely on the intersection of her personal and professional lives, putting all that she holds dear in jeopardy.

When private investigator Charlie Mack is hired by her ex-husband's new wife, Pamela, things get awkward quickly. Her ex, Franklin, has been charged with his brother-in-law's murder. Charlie and Pamela both believe he didn't do it, but he has gone into hiding for some reason neither of them understands. To the police, it adds up to easy guilt, but to Charlie, it indicates that Franklin has stumbled onto something that likely comes with life-threatening complications. Charlie wants proof that the case doesn't involve a double-cross, and when the Mack Investigations team throws all their assets at the case, Charlie's girlfriend, Mandy begins to worry that Charlie's all-out efforts to find Franklin might be driven by lingering romantic feelings. In the end, everyone involved must figure out which loyalties run deeper than love.

A hate group operating in Oakland County, Michigan, has claimed responsibility for a six-month-long string of arson fires and robberies at mosques, temples, and Black churches around Detroit, eluding police and federal agencies. The most recent fire, at a mosque in Dearborn, kills a respected imam. His children - suspicious of law enforcement's treatment of Muslims and afraid of reprisal - hire Charlie Mack and her team of investigators to find their father's murderers. The Mack team begins to hunt down the clues in this local hate crime, but they aren't prepared when they realize that those clues are pointing to a widespread conspiracy that runs through elected state officials and up to the highest levels of national leadership. FBI agent James Saleh returns to help the Mack Agency infiltrate and take down a homegrown militia hell-bent on starting a race war in America.