Murder in Concrete

Charlie, age 19, comes home from an assembly at her high school in Concrete, Washington and finds her mother dead on the bathroom floor, throat slit. A week later, police drag her father’s body from the Skagit River. Her Grandma Lottie gets Charlie to a therapist, who diagnoses PTSD and helps her heal enough to enroll in college. There, at a film showing, she sees her father on a movie screen. Is he still alive? Did he kill her mother?

Charlie takes off for Hollywood to find out. An erroneous clue sends her to a porn studio. Another clue leads her to a low budget zombie shoot in the desert, where crew members say they have never heard of her father, or that he died months ago.

Charlie struggles to learn more from the standoffish Cinematographer; tries to ignore the tantrums of the movie’s immature star; assists a marijuana-smoking film editor who claims he never met her dad, and curries the favor of an aging film actress who has trouble remembering lines.

When Charlie realizes someone is tracking her and her dad, she’s mystified by Russian Cyrillic script in her tracker’s papers.

Worried that Grandma Lottie is in danger, Charlie warns her to live with friends, but Lottie refuses, saying she can take care of herself.

Many adventures later, Charlie ends up in a standoff in the old cement plant in Concrete, Washington, where she makes surprising discoveries.