La Jolla intrigue drives new San Diego thriller

Driving the news: Now she's done it, with the publication of "Hooked," which she told Axios took 19 years to get published.

Catch up quick: In "Hooked," Katrina is an investigative journalist who works at the "San Diego Southern Dispatch" in Mission Valley, which is modeled on the old UT newsroom, Rother said.

• Katrina falls in love with the detective Ken Goode, who is working the murder case Katrina is covering. They can't be together, creating tension.
• Rother dated a source, the chief investment officer for the San Diego County Pension Fund, reported it to her editors and no longer covered pension issues (lucky her).
• Reader, she also married him.

Local locations: "Hooked" is full of local references, including Piatti in La Jolla, Mr' A's, Balboa Park and Windansea Beach.

What they're saying: "Different true crime authors establish their own brand by the city that they live in," Rother told Axios. "So mine is La Jolla and San Diego, because that's where I'm from, and that's what I know."

• The book is the first in a series about "this cabal of wealthy elites" who invested their nest eggs in a (fictional) sexual enhancement drug.
• And that, to Rother, screamed La Jolla.