While on a stakeout, P.I. Sam Crown witnesses the murder of an 18-year-old hooker and apprehends the killers. The hooker’s 13-year-old sister, Rebecca “Becky” Rogers was sitting in their car at the time, but has disappeared by the time Sam goes to talk to her. He finds her nearby, discovers that she and her sister have been living in the car, so he takes the orphan to his parents’ house, where they discover that she is a mathematical genius. They keep her, and as her legal guardian, Sam is slowly trained — reluctantly, because he avoids responsibility for others — by Becky to become the father she had never known. By 16, Becky is about to get her PhDs in math and physics, and since she can’t share her world with Sam, she becomes involved in his — a dangerous place to be. Although Crown’s Law is partly a poignant story of a street kid’s struggle to survive, all the fast-paced adventure, suspense, and breath-taking action you expect from a Wootan thriller is present.

Sam Crown’s beat is Orange County, California. At 48, he’s an aging “dude” who lives at the beach, surfs, and birddogs the bikini crowd.

A former highly-decorated Marine, Sam worked for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for 17 years. He quit after being called in and chastised for shooting a pistol-wielding junkie.

After leaving OCSD, Sam sets up shop as Mickey Malone Investigations. When a murder victim is found with a Mickey business card in his pocket, the cops start knocking on Sam’s door looking for Mickey — a man who doesn’t exist. Sam gets dragged into a murder investigation he doesn’t need, and soon finds that he — and his 16-year-old ward — are targets of the killers. He becomes entangled in espionage and smuggling and finds himself in a race to find the killers before they find him.

When Sam runs a couple of fingerprints through the national database, the FBI is on him like an old wetsuit. Beautiful FBI agent Bo Trout enters the case and sees Sam as a womanizing flirt who consorts with outlaw bikers. As the violent noose tightens, Bo witnesses Sam deliver a large dose of Crown’s Law as events race to an unexpected denouement!