Underdogs Series

Everyone in Seattle knows the name Melody Louise Scott. The little blonde girl with a mischievous grin disappeared three days ago, and every night since her photo has appeared on the news with pleas for any information that leads to her being found safe. Not everyone knows the name Jenna Morris who was just reported missing. The only difference between the two girls is that Melody is white and Jenna is black. Fearing the worst and knowing the police won’t give her daughter priority, Jenna’s mother hires Ari so she’ll know that finding her daughter is the top priority for at least one person. Ari agrees to take the case, putting her at odds with a Detective Lorne, whom she first encountered during the Gavin debacle. Lorne has grown suspicious of what happened that night and uses the opportunity of working together to try and figure out what secrets Ari is hiding. Meanwhile Ari becomes friends with a British canidae Millicent “Milo” Duncan, another wolf whose intentions may not be as pure as they first appear. With Ari distracted by the case and keeping Detective Lorne at arms’ length, Dale becomes more suspicious of the new arrival’s true motives for being in Seattle.

Ari is currently working for Gilles Girard & Moreau on a probationary basis, and her next assignment has piqued Dale's interest: Seattle is finally getting a hockey team! The owner, a client of the firm, asks her to do a background check on the players who will make up the roster to ensure there are no nasty scandals waiting to be uncovered. Ari follows the new recruits while Dale digs into their pasts. The first few targets don't show up any red flags, but any hope of an easy case is destroyed when she and Dale are the victims of a sudden, unprovoked attack. Certain that the attack is related to the hockey team, Ari redoubles her efforts to find out which player is behind it and what they're hiding. Determined to find the truth, she also knows she has to proceed with caution. Hockey can be a brutal sport, and its players can be even more dangerous off the ice.

Ariadne Willow is a private investigator with a secret weapon. She's a canidae, a person with the ability to transform into a wolf at will. Using her heightened senses to track and her shapeshifting to follow people without being seen, she's made a decent business for herself and her associate Dale Frye. When one of the richest women in Seattle wishes to hire her, Ari and Dale think their ship has finally come in. All Ari has to do is observe the client's tabloid-friendly daughter, fresh out of rehab, and confirm that she's truly clean. Ari thinks the case will be a piece of cake, but a moment of shocking violence changes everything. Soon Ari finds herself backed into a corner with no way out, forced to either run or risk losing everything she holds dear by fighting an enemy with unlimited power and resources. With Dale refusing to leave her side, Ari decides to make a stand to remind her enemies that there's only one rule in betting... Always bet on the underdogs.

The wolf has been caged. Ariadne Willow has been framed for murder. Upon her arrival at the police station, she's given a choice: accept GG&M's offer in exchange for her freedom, or risk going up against GG&M in court. Ari refuses and is sent to prison to await trial. Dale teams up with Ari's mom and, along with Milo Duncan's British pack, begins looking for ways to either prove Ari's innocence or take down Cecily Parrish once and for all. Time is not on their side. In addition to the usual dangers of prison, Ari only has four weeks before the wolf forces her to transform, exposing her as a canidae. With the clock ticking on her secret and a seemingly all-powerful enemy who holds all the cards, the odds against Ari and Dale have never been higher. This time, if they can't find a way to turn the tables, the underdogs might be out of the game for good.

Seattle is under siege. An ancient ceremony known as “wolf manoth,” in which human hunters kill as many canidae as possible, has been revived. The hunters have arrived in force, focusing on the Pacific Northwest due to its high wolf population. Ariadne Willow, alerted to the danger by her mother, goes undercover with a group of hunters in an effort to minimize the damage. Unfortunately the hunters have a new weapon, a drug that brings out the feral side of any canidae exposed to it. With her safety and sanity both at risk, Ari is forced to trust a friend turned enemy in order to stay alive. Meanwhile, Dale is cut off from her friend and partner and faces the wrath of drugged canidae and hunters who are eager to make an example of a human who has been consorting with a wolf. Chased through the city and forced to take refuge wherever she can get it, Dale receives help from unexpected corners. Separated by circumstance and under attack from threats both human and wolf, Ari and Dale must do everything in their power to keep the body count down while also staying alive long enough to find each other again.

Canidae private investigator Ariadne Willow and her girlfriend Dale have had a hectic couple of years, dealing with murderous clients while attempting to stop an all-out war between hunters and wolves. After stopping the onset of wolf manoth, Ari decides it’s well past time that she and Dale take a vacation. Two weeks of rest and relaxation at the cabin where their relationship went from business to romance sounds like exactly what the doctor ordered. Dale hopes the opportunity to slow down will ease some of the pain Ari has been suffering from her transformations. Their plans are thrown for a loop when Ari goes for a run and stumbles over the body of a dead girl hidden deep in the woods near the cabin. When she returns with the police the body has vanished and the scene hastily cleaned up. The police don’t see any evidence to confirm Ari’s claims but her enhanced canidae senses confirm the body was there and has vanished. With the police refuse to investigate based only on her word, Ari and Dale begin digging for the truth and quickly learn that there are some secrets people will go to any lengths to keep buried.

The pain that has always accompanied Ari's transformation into the wolf has finally been diminished, and she's going to need every bit of her newfound freedom if she wants to survive her next case. Ari doesn't think much about getting a drunken late-night call from Clark Wilcox, a rival private investigator. She assumes he's drunk and randomly dialed her number until the following morning, when Detective Macallan reveals he committed suicide immediately after hanging up. The death is clearly self-inflicted so the police are willing to close the case and move on. Ari, however, knows there has to be more to the story. If nothing else, she wants to know why he chose her to be his final conversation. She begins investigating the man's life leading up to the fateful moment and quickly discovers he was using his agency to gather blackmail material on his clients. She knows that somewhere in his cache of damning material is someone who didn't take kindly to being threatened. She just has to find out who it is without being caught in the same web that eventually led to Wilcox killing himself. Meanwhile Dale, while overjoyed by Ari's newfound pain-free changes, realizes that Ari seems to need her less. No late night calls to rescue her after a run, no massages to help her aching back and shoulders. Despite reassurances from Ari that everything is fine, Dale can't help but think about the fact Ari is now a full-fledged canidae... and no modern canidae has ever had a lasting relationship with a human.

The wolf has returned. Ari is reluctant when she's summoned to Seattle's Millionaire's Row by Vivian Burroughs, given their history with rich clients, but the money is too good to refuse. Vivian reveals that she's dying, and fears one of her four children might attempt to steal a valuable tapestry hanging in her house. She plans to lock the room where it hangs and leave the key with Ari until the will is read. The job seems simple enough until the day arrives and the room is unlocked to reveal the tapestry has vanished. Now Ari has to stay on the case to figure out not only which of the heirs is responsible for taking the artwork, but how they managed to get it out of a locked room. With time running out before all her suspects leave town, Ari has to figure out who took the priceless tapestry and how they did it, while also facing an outside force which may do the unthinkable and come between her and Dale.

Ariadne Willow has just solved the biggest mystery in popular music. Seattle's only werewolf private investigator has just learned the true identity of Saint Artemis, a hugely-famous rock star who only performs in masks. No one knows her real name or what she looks like, but she's just revealed herself to Ari. She's been receiving threatening emails and, now that she's in Seattle for a series of shows, a physical note has been left at the house she's renting. Ari is hired to play bodyguard to keep her safe until showtime. It's a simple case, at a time when everything in Ari's personal life is going well. Except she hasn't heard from her mother in a while. And Dale seems to be sending secretive text messages. But at least the case is easy. Until the Saint's stalker becomes bolder, and Ari begins to worry the threats might lead to very real danger.

Almost ten years ago, Ariadne Willow helped create a stalemate between Hunters and canidae. That peace comes to an end with the abduction of Gwyneth Willow, her partner, Milo Duncan, and the doctor who kept Ari safe while she was in prison. When Milo manages to escape, Ari promises to pull out all the stops to rescue the others. But this time the Hunters have a plan. Another young canidae is abducted, and her imprisonment is streamed live on the internet for the whole world to see. Unless Ari can find her and stop it, the girl will have no choice but to transform, and canidae will be exposed. The key to winning may lie in a legendary lost book, a call to arms for all wolves to rise up against the Hunters. Ari worries that unleashing it will only lead to a long, bloody war. But with the lives of her mother and an innocent girl at stake, can Ari really afford to play fair?

Alice is in a coma, Malcolm is missing... and Ian is trying to keep his cool under the pressure of finals. Can’t he just catch a break? Doesn’t seem like it, after getting bitten by the bug species taking over the school, and... hearing one of the bugs talk? Is this it? Has he cracked? Or is there something more sinister happening here? Eh, it’s probably just a bunch of weird bugs, right?

Malcom wakes in a strange world of aliens and whimsical, nonsensical creatures. Unable to recall anything, he meets a girl in this strange place, a girl he feels like he knows. Will they ever leave this fantastical place, or will they die knowing nothing of each other and nothing about themselves? Book 3 of the Underdogs Series