The Man Who Hated the Light from the Sky

While he was still alive people knew that Horst Pachmann was a mean man who hated the light from the sky. During the twenties he smuggled young girls into California and forced them into prostitution. He went on to provide thugs and strikebreakers to local growers and packers, and to found a leading family of Bellas Santas, a small California city. Although he was murdered decades ago, his presence still hovers like an evil ghost. While illustrating a history of Bellas Santas, Lisset Greene discovers the bodies of Pachmann's great-granddaughter and her infant near the beach where Pachmann smuggled ashore his human cargo. She becomes obsessed with the two crimes that were committed more than fifty years apart. Lisset and Detective Captain Jake Tucker become convinced that both crimes are connected. The search for the connection exposes them to attack by skinheads, uncovers long-standing family hatreds, and echoes of Horst Pachmann's history of evil, and comes to a violent end on the beach where it all began.