{"id":2406,"date":"2026-07-08T14:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T21:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/?page_id=2406"},"modified":"2026-07-14T20:29:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T03:29:39","slug":"almost-secret-2-3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/?page_id=2406","title":{"rendered":"Almost Secret"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-background-color-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:20px\"><strong>Available in early 2027<\/strong><br><em>Second mystery of the Portland series featuring Jim Gance<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"wp-block-themeisle-blocks-advanced-columns-da7affaf\" class=\"wp-block-themeisle-blocks-advanced-columns has-2-columns has-desktop-equal-layout has-tablet-equal-layout has-mobile-collapsedRows-layout has-vertical-unset\"><div class=\"wp-block-themeisle-blocks-advanced-columns-overlay\"><\/div><div class=\"innerblocks-wrap\">\n<div id=\"wp-block-themeisle-blocks-advanced-column-e4ecbf64\" class=\"wp-block-themeisle-blocks-advanced-column\"><div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\" style=\"margin-top:0;margin-right:var(--wp--preset--spacing--30);margin-bottom:0;margin-left:var(--wp--preset--spacing--30)\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"658\" height=\"1169\" src=\"http:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Secret-cover-cropped.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2268\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.6533310648226915;width:263px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Secret-cover-cropped.png 658w, https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Secret-cover-cropped-169x300.png 169w, https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Secret-cover-cropped-576x1024.png 576w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 658px) 100vw, 658px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"wp-block-themeisle-blocks-advanced-column-6281c175\" class=\"wp-block-themeisle-blocks-advanced-column\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-background-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-elements-1 wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"color:#dea62e;padding-right:20px;padding-left:20px;font-size:22px\"><strong>An old murder and a buried treasure<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-white-background-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-2 wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--20);padding-right:0;padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--20);padding-left:0\">It&#8217;s 1994 and Jim Gance, the elected Portland city auditor, gets drawn into the schemes of treasure hunters who hope to find hundreds of old stock certificates after their owner, Duke Ohman, was murdered in front of his house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-3 wp-block-paragraph\">The problem is, the certificates were lost twenty-seven years earlier by the police, with many failed attempts to find them. One possible location is the city auditor\u2019s archives center, buried among a million other documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-4 wp-block-paragraph\">Knowing the case, Gance delves into the unsolved murder of Duke Ohman, a classic mid-century wealthy playboy. Gance tracks down Duke&#8217;s old friends and neighbors, who recollect their 1960s parties and carefree living, while he suspects one of them is the killer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-5 wp-block-paragraph\">More troubles arise with an audit about police excessive force that upsets the city council and every officer in the police bureau. Gance pressures an angry mayor and unwilling police chief to cooperate with the audit, while navigating among city hall personalities and an inescapable public spotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-6 wp-block-paragraph\">As his many entanglements tighten, Gance has no easy moves, and accepts critical support from his colleague Deb Morgan, the elected Multnomah County auditor, who supplies a key link to solve Duke\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-7 wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Available in early 2027Second mystery of the Portland series featuring Jim Gance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2406","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2406"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2612,"href":"https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2406\/revisions\/2612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyblackmer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}