title: Bad News and Trouble: The Delilah West Stories (Delilah West Thiller)
author: Maxine O'Callaghan
description: Author of the groundbreaking Delilah West private eye series Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Shamus, Anthony and Bram Stoker Award Nominee Maxine OCallaghan was born in Tennessee in 1937 and grew up in the boot heel of Missouri as a sharecroppers child. She was the first in her large extended family to finish high school and left a few days after graduation with ten dollars and a bus ticket for Memphis. She went from there to Miami where she joined the Marine Corp Reserve and then to Chicago where she went on active duty for a while and got her first taste of California during basic training at the Recruit Depot in San Diego. In 1972 she moved with her husband and two children to Orange County, CA, a long way from the cotton fields of her childhood. As a stay-at-home mom she began her writing career with short stories, including one to Alfred Hitchcocks Mystery Magazine about a private detective named Delilah West, which predates both Marcia Muller and Sue Graftons entry into the female PI genre. She published thirteen novels and a collection of short stories. She has been nominated for both the Anthony and Bram Stoker award. Her novels and short fiction featuring Delilah West were honored by the Private Eye Writers of America with their lifetime achievement award, The Eye, for her contribution to the field.
zlib_text: AN AGENT FOR DELILAH
  
  KATE MARK CLARK
  
  Copyright © 2018 Kate Marie Clark.
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
  distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
  photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without
  the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief
  quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses
  permitted by copyright law.
  
  Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used
  fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s
  imagination.
  
  Front cover design by Steven Novak
  
  Edited by Jolene Perry
  
  Printed by Kate Marie Clark, in the United States of America.
  
  First printing edition 2018.
  
  authorkatemarieclark@gmail.com
  
  [ _www.katemarieclark.com_](http://www.katemarieclark.com)
  
  ![](Images/image00060.jpeg)
  
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  > CONTENTS
  
   _Untitled_
  
   _Chapter 1_
  
   _Cha