Denise Hamilton Books In Order

Publication Order of Eve Diamond Mystery Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Akashic Noir Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Denise Hamilton
Denise Hamilton is a Los Angeles based writer-journalist whose work appeared in Cosmopolitan, the Los Angeles Times, Wired, New Times, and Der Spiegel. She has won first place awards from the Los Angeles Press Club for business and feature writing.

As a reporter for the LA Times for ten years, not only did she cover LA stories, but also the breakup of the Soviet Union, communism’s collapse in Eastern Europe, and burgeoning youth movements in Japan. However the majority of her Times career was spent in the suburbs of Los Angeles, where she used her overseas experiences to cover the city’s multicultural communities which feature in her “Eve Diamond” series prominently.

Denise, a Fulbright scholar, taught in the former Yugoslavia during the Bosnian War. On one of her many Balkan adventures, she hitchhiked into Albania with just $200 in her backpack and relied upon the kindness of strangers while she criss-crossed the most isolated and backward country in all of Europe.

She has won an Edgar Award for Best Short Story and the Southern California Independent Booksellers’ award for Best Mystery of the Year.
“The Jasmine Trade” received wide acclaim and was a finalist for the WILLA, Edgar, Macavity, and Anthony Awards. The novel was also a finalist for the Creasey Dagger Award given by the UK Crime Writers Assn. “Last Lullaby” was named a Best Book of 2004 by the Los Angeles Times and was a finalist for the Southern California Booksellers Association 2004 Award for “Best Mystery”. USA Today Summer Pick. “Savage Garden” was a finalist for the Southern California Booksellers Award for the Best Mystery of 2005.

Denise has received various fellowships and grants, and has done consulting for New York University’s Institute for War, Peace Reporting and Washington DC based Search for Common Ground. She speaks regularly at libraries, universities, and literary festivals.

“The Jasmine Trade” is the first novel in the “Eve Diamond” series and was released in 2001. It was all set. Marina Lu had even ordered some designer dresses for all eight of her bridesmaids who, in several months’ time, would have preceded her down the aisle at her storybook, painstakingly planned out wedding. However Marina lies dead, all alone inside of her status car, her two-carat diamond engagement ring refracting nothing except another abruptly shattered Los Angeles dream. Was her death only a carjacking gone wrong? Or is there more to this story?

Marina gives Eve Diamond, LA Times reporter, her chilling introduction to “parachute kids”, the rich Asian teens that live all by themselves in California as their parents run businesses in Hong Kong. Eve, while delving deeper into the mysteries surrounding Marina’s life and death, Eve stumbles upon this world of unmoored youth and even more tragic subculture where young immigrants are living in virtual slavery. While she unravels the haunting details and closes in on this scoop, what she learns puts her own life in danger.

A noir-accented and moving mystery which opens a rare window on cross cultural, contemporary Los Angeles, this is a political and passionate debut.

“Sugar Skull” is the second novel in the “Eve Diamond” series and was released in 2003. Eve Diamond typically works out of the paper’s San Gabriel Valley bureau, however she is taking a weekend shift downtown when Vincent Chevalier, while distraught, breaks through security and demands she help him.

Isabel, his fifteen year old daughter, has gone missing, and the cops aren’t willing to go looking for her until forty-eight hours have gone by. The guy thinks he may know where she is, with some other runaways in a dismal squat out in East Hollywood.

He wants Eve to be his witness as he goes into the squat and attempts to bring his daughter back home. Eve senses there could be a story here. Why would a privileged young girl from Pasadena spend time with the down n outs in East Hollywood? However there won’t be any interview with Isabel. She’s dead. With her body wrapped in a dirty futon and abandoned in some derelict basement.

Eve’s questions have just started. What brought this blonde teen to such an early and tragic demise? Did man called Finch, who has had prior arrests for burglary, drugs, and theft have anything to do with her murder? What about her dad? There is something unsettling about the guy. And what exactly was her relationship with Paolo Langdon, her schoolmate and the son of a prominent politician and a socialite hostess?

Even while Eve has to fight against some of the powerful forces which want her off of this story, and she finds herself emotionally drawn to the brooding scion of a Mexican music promotion titan. It is dangerous to mix personal and professional together, however Silvio Aguilar is just too hard to resist. And in a world like this, in the little sugar skull confections which commemorate the Mexican Day of the Dead, Eve might just discover some clue to a killer.

“The Last Embrace” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 2008. Los Angeles in 1949. Lily Kessler, a former spy and stenographer for the OSS, arrives in Los Angeles to find Kitty, her late fiance’s sister, who is an actress that has gone missing from her Hollywood boardinghouse. Very next day, Kitty’s body is discovered in a ravine under the Hollywood sign. Lily, unimpressed with the local cops, investigates by herself.

While delving into the life of Kitty, she finds an eccentric special effects genius, fiercely competitive starlets, exotic denizens of Hollywood’s nightclubs, gangsters, and one homicide detective that may just distract her from her quest to get justice. However the landscape in LA can shift pretty kaleidoscopically, and Lily starts seeing just how easily it can be for a young woman to lose her balance and fall prey to the dangers of such an alluring city.

With some vibrant characters and an unerring insight into the dark impulses and desires which can flare up between women and men, this showcases an author at the height of her storytelling powers. All while transporting readers to a transitional and fascinating period in one of the most beguiling cities in America.