Jill St. Anne is the pen name for Jill Zajicek Wickersham. She was an award-winning investigative journalist in college. After her undergraduate work, she received an MBA in International Business. Her most recent job in the corporate world was with Chase Manhattan (now JP Morgan Chase) where she worked in the Private Client Services department, helping the bank meet the financial needs of high-net worth individuals in Silicon Valley. She currently lives with her husband and young daughter in South Kensington, London, the San Francisco Bay Area and British Columbia, Canada.

Jill St. Anne

The Italian Connection

Jacket Notes: Set in San Francisco and on the beaches of Tuscany, The Italian Connection reads like an international thriller meets Sex and The City, with a modern day Nancy Drew as its heroine.

When software engineer Peter Carmaletti falls off the roof of his office building, his childhood friend Christina Culhane, a savvy banker from San Francisco, cannot believe the official verdict of suicide. Eager to find the connection between Peter's death and a luxury hotel in Italy, she combines a much-needed holiday with some amateur investigating.

But Christina is not prepared for the distracting effect that Franco Doria, the suave but enigmatic aristocrat, has on her. Even more concerning, some of Franco's friends are distinctly shady, and his own behaviour questionable.

A second death at Peters company in Silicon Valley confirms Christina's suspicions, but involves her in an FBI investigation into the theft of a microchip capable of activating an arsenal of anti-ballistic missiles. By the time she discovers the location of the chip, she is a marked woman and the thieves want her eliminated.

Torn between two continents and two lovers Franco and the distinguished presidential candidate Richard Cartwright and her burning desire to bring Peter's killer to justice, Christina takes a gamble that puts her own life on the line. In the climactic ending she discovers her inner strength and learns that in love, a woman s intuition is seldom wrong.
(© Airleaf Publishing)