Frances Dinkelspiel is an award-winning journalist and co-founder of the news site, Berkeleyside. She is the author of two books, the New York Times bestseller Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California, and the San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California .