City Serenade

Detectives John Bowers and his partner Minola Raye catch a case that has them on the hunt for a serial rapist who has left two victims in the heart of the city, in the shade of the white-collar towers. Portland, the City of Roses, prides itself on a downtown which welcomes and succors the unfortunate, where every other corner has a Starbucks and the professionals hurry from cobbled streets to catch the trolley to green burbs. This is one new case that has the City fathers determined to put a suspect on the evening news sooner rather than later.

John Bowers gets sidelined by a kid who almost puts the Detective in the morgue. While John's on the mend in ICU, his partner and the whole Central Precinct Homicide team is trying to find the main suspect who has disappeared. There's barely a trail to follow, but intuition and plain-dog police work close in just in time to promise the return of safe streets downtown.

With John down a deep rabbit hole from the opiates they're shooting into him the hospital, he becomes another crime victim, but this time nobody's on the hunt for the perpetrator. This is one violation that won't end with City Serenade.

RAY BATES' Detective John Bowers Police Procedurals feature the Central Precinct Robbery-Homicide Unit in Portland, Oregon. Bates' experience as an investigator, lecturer and consultant for Regency-Fox legal thrillers provides realistic forensics, vivid characters, sexy romance and original plot lines to appeal to True Crime junkies and Mystery fans alike. Bates is a native Oregonian and divides his time between Portland and the North Coast.