Jaye Winston is an investigator with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, a position she has held since 1989. She lives in apartment six at 8801 Willoughby Avenue in Los Angeles, and is registered as a Democrat. In the book she is described as slim with straight, mid-length blonde hair. She works out of the Sheriff's Training Academy and Regional Services (STARS) Center in Whittier. Her supervisor was Lt. Dan Buskirk. In 1996, she worked with LAPD detective Harry Bosch on a pair of related abductions and murders, and the two rescued a potential third victim from the killer.