Vanessa Sterling has abandoned the all consuming life of a Chicago corporate lawyer to begin a new life in the sleepy fishing village of Depoe Bay, Oregon. But a serious challenge arises when a long-lost son returns and the past reemerges to entangle her in a web of lies, deceit, and betrayal—the depths of which not only threaten her moral fiber, but her very existence. To save her son from his sordid past, this misguided mother begins to unravel deadly family secrets, pulling her into the seedy underworld of a drug czar, only to discover her son is not so innocent. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Fran Blacketer moved to California in the late 1970s where she earned a master's degree in psychology and taught at Saddleback College. She lived in Laguna Beach where she met her artist husband, Jim, and they moved to Depoe Bay, Oregon for six years before returning to southern California. While in Oregon she found the central coast to be a haven for writers where mystery and intrigue seemed to permeate the rugged coast line. "You Can't Kill a Dead Man" is the first novel in a series of Vanessa Sterling mysteries.