A SKUNK BY ANY OTHER NAME

When the Imperial Sapphire of Auriga vanishes from a locked gallery during a diplomatic reception, Senior Investigator Marcus Valerian has forty-eight hours before the theft becomes an interstellar incident. The evidence points squarely at the Anglo Commonwealth. Marcus doesn't believe it for a moment. Dispatched to London on orders that amount to "find the jewel and don't embarrass anyone," Marcus finds himself partnered with Deputy Chief Investigator Charlotte Ashby of the Commonwealth Bureau of Investigation - methodical, sharp, and in possession of an anonymous tip that arrived four days before the theft: THE JEWEL IS LEVERAGE. What begins as a sapphire recovery quickly becomes something considerably larger. The theft is a distraction. The leverage is a tool. And behind it all, a forty-year-old organization that was never supposed to exist is working to prevent an intelligence treaty that would expose everything it has built. Marcus and Charlotte have six days, two jurisdictions, one whiteboard map, and the slowly dawning realization that they work together extremely well. A SKUNK BY ANY OTHER NAME is a slow-burn, Hayes Code mystery-romance set in an interstellar empire that loves procedure, good sandwiches, and the particular satisfaction of following evidence to exactly the right conclusion. First book in the Anglo-Aurigan Investigations series.