Bo Bradley Series

BO BRADLEY is a child abuse investigator for San Diego County’s Department of Social Services, a job involving an endless chain of crises that range from the merely ridiculous to the flat-out terrifying.  Further complicating things is Bo’s manic depressive disorder, a troubling but occasionally valuable problem for which she almost always takes her meds.  Bo’s perspective on her cases is intelligent, quirky and, of course, driven.  She’ll do whatever is necessary to protect the children whose cases she investigates.  Even if her methods seem a little, well… crazy.

Child of Silence

When an old Paiute woman finds a four-year-old boy tied to a mattress in an abandoned shack in the hills above San Diego, Bo gets the case.  Staff at St. Mary’s Hospital for Children assume the boy is mentally impaired because he cannot talk, but Bo remembers a little sister named Laurie.  The boy, like Laurie, is deaf.  Bo tangles with the system, first in attempts to place her young client in a foster home where sign language is used, and later, after someone has tried to shoot the child, in a desperate, manicky, midnight flight into the desert to save his life.

“A sensationally fine first novel… breathtakingly well-told…”  The Los Angeles Times

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Strawgirl

The rape/murder of a little girl is exploited by a sensation-seeking psychologist, arousing the public to a frenzy of mindless rage toward “Satanists” while Bo struggles to protect the murdered child’s sister and save an unjustly accused man from prison.  But both the system for which she works and the real killer are out to get Bo, in a complex case that threatens her with professional ruin… and death.

“A strikingly unconventional sleuth… (Padgett) knows how to tell a story with passion and purpose.”   New York Times Book Review

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Turtle Baby

 A poisoned eight-month-old Maya baby boy living with paid caretakers on the American side of San Diego’s Mexican border grabs Bo’s heart and sends her into Tijuana, where she can legally investigate nothing, in search the little boy’s mother.  When the mother, a successful singer from Guatemala, dies onstage in a Tijuana bar from a different poison, Bo finds herself snarled in a web of international intrigue that threatens the child’s future, and her own.

“A powerful novel with complex characters, a sophisticated love story, evocative descriptions, and heart-stopping action.”    Minneapolis Star Tribune

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Moonbird Boy

Ghost Flower Lodge is an unconventional psychiatric treatment facility run by a band of Kumeyaay Indians, and host to Bo after the death of her dog throws her into an acute depressive episode.  But when another guest at the lodge, successful comedian Mort Wagman, is shot and killed, Bo drags herself back to life in order to help Mort’s strange son, Bird, now an orphan.  And in the process discovers a human evil more toxic than rattlesnake venom.

“…Padgett weaves strands of neurophysiological research, Indian ritual, murder, big business, WW II atrocities, family ties and romance… into a gripping novel.”  Publisher’s Weekly

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The Dollmaker’s Daughters

Fifth in the Bo Bradley series,following TURTLE BABY, in this psychological thriller Bo reaches out to 15-year-old Janny Malcolm, a teenage foster child found frozen in terror at a popular goth hangout. A battered antique doll is chained to Janny’s wrist. Against all departmental rules, Bo befriends Janny and picks up a 13-year-long trail of child abuse, deceit and murder that may involve Child Protective Services at the highest level. When Bo learns of a grim medical facility and secretly observes a closed funeral attended by only two people, her investigative instincts rev into high hear. This story is rich in atmosphere, and Bo, with her heightened psychological insight and empathy, is at her best.
“Excellent … a Bach concerto of a read… Fascinating… outstanding blend of the comic and the eerie … engrossing and enchanting … It is impossible to put down.”
—New Brunswick Reader
“This is a book I hated to put down until I reached its satisfying conclusion.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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Stork Boy

San Diego Child Abuse Investigator Bo Bradley agrees to accompany significant other Dr. Andrew LaMarche on a two-week business trip to France. Bo, who lives with a bipolar disorder, looks forward to relaxing in a tiny Alpine village, painting scenery and dodging Andy’s frequent proposals of marriage. She’s packed enough meds to last for months, and even though she doesn’t speak a word of French, somebody at work gave her an old Berlitz language text to use. What could go wrong?

The dead man found in her back yard with a peculiar iron spike buried in his neck the morning after her arrival is unfortunate, but it has nothing to do with her. Or does it? Bo fights an awareness that it does, which makes no sense. And what about the strange old nun the police bring in to translate as they interview Bo?  Sister Jean-Noëlle’s English is pathetic, but as she leaves she whispers a line from Hamlet. Why is the old woman pretending to be something she’s not?

Bo inadvertently uncovers one incomprehensible clue to the murder after another as she juggles her relationship with Andy, a troubling Interpol agent, Russian icons and a secret burial during which everybody in town except Bo knows to stay off the streets. Until the moment when it becomes clear that she hasto identify the killer because a fragile boy’s life hangs in the balance.

Out of her element, lacking any legal authority and frantic as time runs out, Bo faces the most complex and hopeless case of her career. And it’s not even her case. Except she knows it is.

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