Oakland Based Mystery Novelist Signs with Bootstrap Publications

Nicholas Louis Baham III, writer of the Sonny Trueheart Mystery series has signed a 4-book deal with Bootstrap Publications. His first book in the series, The People's Detective, will debut in early 2024.

The People's Detective

A Sonny Trueheart Mystery

When investigative journalist and BlackLivesMatter activist Aurora Jenkins gets too close to

the truth about the unsolved disappearances of young Black, Latinx, and Indigenous women

from the streets of Oakland, a powerful alliance of Black organized crime, corrupt police,

and white elites seek to suppress her story. Sonny Trueheart, a former Oakland Police Department homicide detective, burdened by alcoholism and the ghosts of his past, is called to investigate Aurora’s kidnapping and the facts behind her story. Together with his former aikido Sensei, a Bahamian human rights advocate, and an old friend with a propensity for gratuitous sex and violence, Sonny uncovers a vast criminal conspiracy.

Armed with little more than his wit and intuition, a snub-nose revolver, and the discipline of

aikido, Sonny Trueheart emerges as a symbol of revolutionary awakening in the Black

communities of Oakland, California.

Available for preorder now.

Nicholas Louis Baham III, Ph.D. is a Professor and Chair of Ethnic Studies at California State University East Bay and teaches Black Studies and Genders & Sexualities in Communities of Color.