California Woman

A brutal rape...A murdered child...An enduring love...And one woman's twenty year quest for revenge...A best-seller when originally published, this historical thriller is about an extraordinary woman who pursues revenge and justice over a twenty year period against a rapist who also intentionally caused the death of her infant child. During the same two whirlwind decades, through wit, her own beauty, sexual cunning, luck, sacrifice, great physical risk and determination, Esther Cable rises to unimagined wealth and prominence amidst the lawless California gold rush, the Comstock silver madness and the building of the transcontinental railroad. All the while she dreams not only of revenge, but a nearly impossible reunion with the husband she left behind out of shame -- but still loves after all these years of separation.

Daniel Knapp has written and edited fiction and non-fiction for such national publications as TIME, The Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Life, The New York Times Magazine, Reader's Digest, The Saturday Evening Post, West Magazine, Performing Arts, People, Show, and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. His Esquire profile of Mao Tse Tung, "A Day In The Life Of The Chairman," has been translated into a dozen languages, and included in anthologies and university textbooks. He is the author of the bestselling "as told to" biography Going Down With Janis, a scathing look at the underbelly of the early rock world and the life and times of rock star Janis Joplin. He also wrote Baccarat, a study of the high roller game and the man who brought it to Las Vegas after escaping Cuba's civil war. When the print edition of his novel, California Woman was originally published, it sold approximately a half million copies. His latest novel, a stand alone sequel to California Woman entitled THE WOMEN IN TYLER'S WILL, is now available in the Amazon Kindle store and as a glossy, large-sized Amazon.com Print on Demand paperback, as is California Woman. He now lives in Salt Lake City with his wife of 36 years, Leslie; formerly head of the division of biological anthropology at the University of Cambridge, she is now the Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Utah. They have travelled the world together pursuing primate research and new subjects for fiction and non-fiction.