The Lost Witness (signed & dated)

With his novel City of Fire, Robert Ellis debuted a dynamic new character in Los Angeles detective Lena Gamble, but also captured a vivid picture of the city of Los Angeles. Readers and critics made City of Fire an instant phenomenon, as the book became a Los Angeles Times bestseller and was named a top summer read by People magazine, USA Today, and The New York Times.

Now Lena Gamble is a cop held in disgrace by department higher-ups for the explosive way the Romeo case played out, though she’s still hailed as a hero by her colleagues for catching the killer. For her punishment, she hasn’t handled a real murder investigation in eight months. When the chief finally tosses her a case, she’s thrilled until she gets a look at the scene and realizes he’s probably setting her up to be exiled once and for all: The victim is unidentified, and there are no witnesses, and no leads. Just the body, chopped into pieces and dropped in a Dumpster—gruesome enough to ensure that once again the media will be following Lena’s every move.

Robert Ellis delivers another high-speed, commercial, powerful read, featuring one of the most engaging and vibrant police characters on the shelf today.

Robert Ellis is a former filmmaker and political media consultant from Los Angeles. He is the author of three bestselling crime novels, Access to Power, The Dead Room, and the critically acclaimed City of Fire, which also garnered praise from authors as diverse as Michael Connelly and Janet Evanovich.