Historical Mystery Author Ona Russell’s Rule of Capture Wins Silver at 2015 IPPY Awards

SOLANA BEACH, Calif. - May 7, 2015 - PRLog -- Historical mystery author Ona Russell’s third Sarah Kaufman novel, Rule of Capture (ISBN 978-1632930477) has won the Silver Medal in the 2015 Independent Publisher Regional and Ebook Awards in the West-Pacific – Best Regional Fiction category. Conducted annually, the Independent Publisher Book Awards honor the year's best independently published titles from around the world. The awards are intended to bring increased recognition to the thousands of exemplary independent, university, and self-published titles published each year.Dr. Russell will receive her medal at the 19^th Annual IPPY Awards Ceremony in New York on May 27, 2015.

Rule of Capture follows the first and second books in the critically acclaimed Sarah Kaufman series: O’Brien’s Desk (ISBN 0-86534-416-7) and The Natural Selection (ISBN 978-0-86534-628-4). O'Brien's Desk was nominated for a Pen/Faulkner award, and The Natural Selection was a finalist in the 2009 San Diego Book Awards, the 2009 Next Generation Indie Awards, and the 2009 California Commonwealth Club Book Awards. The Natural Selection was also nominated as the New Mexico Book Awards 2008 Best New Paperback.       `

Set in Los Angeles in 1928, Rule of Capture finds Ohio court officer and civic trailblazer Sarah Kaufman at the trial of C. C. Julian, a suave huckster who knowingly over-issued stock in his petroleum company. Swindling thousands out of their savings, Julian and his cohorts were notorious in their day, and as one of their victims, Sarah is in the city to see that justice is served. But when a former acquaintance, the beautiful Rita Fuentes Bradford, is murdered, Sarah finds herself drawn into a search for Rita’s killer.

Plunged into a tense, ethnic tug-of-war between the Jewish and Mexican communities in the “melting pot” of early L.A., Sarah becomes involved with the handsome and powerful Carlos Martinez, a Chicano man both living the American Dream and engaged in subversive activity. While the relationship between Sarah and Carlos heats up, Sarah’s lover, journalist Mitchell Dobrinski, decides to visit Los Angeles to report on the trial and keep an eye on Sarah. But Mitchell gets more than he bargains for, learning not only of Sarah’s infidelity, but her discovery of a cover-up that threatens to break the city at the seams. Laced with historical details from 1920s Los Angeles—when oil was booming, Hollywood was young, and Tijuana was the frontier—the story also shines a light on the ruling class corruption and ethnic prejudices that continue to this day. In providing a tantalizing glimpse into Southern California’s past, Rule of Capture holds a mirror up to its present.

“I am honored to receive recognition from the IPPY judges for Rule of Capture,” said Russell. “I have always been fascinated with the 1920s, and am excited that this story, in which I strived to portray the complexity of Los Angeles during that decade, has received an award.”

Russell holds a Ph.D. in literature from the University of California, San Diego, has been published in a variety of other venues, and is a credentialed mediator. Teaching for years at the college level, she created courses that combined her interdisciplinary interests, including Literature and the Law  a topic on which she has written and spoken extensively. Russell was born in Los Angeles and now resides with her husband in Solana Beach, California.

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