Blackman Agency Investigations

Sam Blackman is an angry man. A chief warrant officer in the criminal investigation detachment of the U.S. military, he lost a leg in Iraq and has been outspoken in his criticism of his medical treatment. Then, ex-marine and fellow amputee Tikima Robertson walks into his hospital room, hinting that she has an opportunity for Sam to use his investigative skills. But before she can return, Tikima is murdered.

Former chief warrant officer and amputee Sam Blackman and his partner, Nakayla Robertson, are opening a detective agency. They have high hopes that the thriving Mountain Region will provide a steady stream of cases. Their first client, a quirky elderly woman in a retirement community, makes a strange request: she wants Sam to right a wrong she committed over 70 years ago. Her victim? F. Scott Fitzgerald. Her crime? Stealing a manuscript when Fitzgerald resided in the stately Grove Park Inn.

It was only a simple, routine assignment for private investigator Sam Blackman and his partner, Nakayla Robertson: follow a history professor, who is suing a spinal surgeon for malpractice, and catch her in physical activities that undercut her claim.

Marsha Montgomery comes to the office asking Sam and Nakayla to investigate a burglary at her mother’s home. In 1967 someone stole a rifle and a photograph of Marsha’s mother, grandmother, and great grandmother taken in 1932 by renowned photographer Doris Ulmann. Marsha’s visit is no coincidence: The photograph was taken at the Kingdom of the Happy Land. Sam’s being played, but why? When Marsha’s 85-year-old mother, Lucille, is arrested for murder, Sam has his answer and his case. Is the skeleton that of Jimmy Lang - Lucille’s lover and Marsha’s white father - who disappeared in 1967?

When private detective Sam Blackman agrees to help his partner and lover, Nakayla Robertson, conduct a fundraiser for orphaned twins, he does so to ease his conscience. The boys' parents were killed in a courtroom shootout where Sam was the key witness against the twins' father. The charity event, a nighttime ghost tour of the legendary haunted sites of Asheville, North Carolina, seems harmless enough.

When private eyes Sam Blackman and Nakayla Robertson are asked by an eighty-year-old client to investigate the death of her brother, they warn her there is little chance of success. Paul Weaver died nearly seventy years earlier. The only documentation she has is the sole surviving copy of a coroner's report stating his death was caused by an accidental fall while hiking. There's a red flag: Weaver knew every inch of the mountain trails.

Iraq War veteran Sam Blackman with his prosthetic leg and his no-nonsense private eye partner Nakayla Robertson love their investigations―and they love each other. An interracial couple in the new South, the Asheville, North Carolina, pair has surrounded themselves with a terrific support team, including an unorthodox lawyer and a veteran cop. They deploy humor both to bind them together and to deflect insults. Plus, it helps deal with the tragedies their work uncovers.

Sam Blackman and Nakayla Robertson, private investigators in Asheville, North Carolina, are hired when a local environmentalist dies while monitoring water quality in the nearby Pigeon River. With no soil or water samples found near the body, his widow doesn't believe his death was an accident. In fact, witnesses reported a public altercation between the environmentalist and local mill heir Luke Kirkpatrick just two days prior. Could Luke or his father, Ted, have committed murder to secure their proposed business expansion?