POSTMODERNVENUS is a detective novel. San Francisco’s criminal justice system is explored through the eyes of a heroine protagonist. Ava Johansson is an ambitious art school grad student who became victim to a violent crime that left her traumatized and puzzled. Ava’s naive blind trust gave way to her unquestioning homage to the SFPD Detective during the 4-month investigation. Later, she discovers the police botched her case. The forensic evidence collected at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital Emergency Room went untested for years, allowing toxicological evidence to expire. The Detective exhibited favoritism towards the assailant; coincident with the news reports on the Detective accepting bribes from the affluent crooks he was investigating. Fueled by an insatiable desire for truth, Ava vows to get even with a corrupt system.

WHAT INSPIRED THE TITLE? It derived from an amalgamation of conversations, an interest in art history, an antecedent art model career and an inside-joke yet it was a fit. I present an honest real-life depiction as I reveal my missteps, responsibilities and inquisitive nature. These qualities are consistent with how the postmodernists strengthen the reader’s trust in author-as-writer.  The author who admits her own faults is more trustworthy than she who presents herself as perfect. I uncover paradoxes and expose the “fairness” of the judicial process and the role of power.  It also deconstructs and questions the métarécit or metanarrative of criminal justice, law and truth.