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Forge Thrillers To Get You in the Spirit for Spooky Season

Now that September is here, we’re sure you’ve started to see Halloween decor hit shelves in all the stores you frequent. Scary movies are popping up as “suggested for you” when you’re hunting for your next watch on Netflix. Food brands are releasing the spook-ified versions of your favorite treats. Your “for you page” is filling up with videos of content creators who are showing the latest trends for the upcoming spooky season. And we bet the wheels are already turning in your head as you gather ideas for what your Halloween costume will be this year! As the temperature begins to drop, the excitement for fall is on the rise. And we have a perfect list of books for you to dip into that will further get you in the mood for the arrival of spooky season! Check out these thrillers from Forge that are sure to send chills down your spine!


A Good Family by Matt Goldman

A Good Family

Katie Kuhlmann’s marriage is falling apart. But she has a secure job, her children are healthy, and her house, a new construction in the prestigious Country Club neighborhood of Edina, Minnesota, is beautiful. She can almost ignore the way her husband, Jack, has been acting–constantly checking his phone, not going to work, disappearing from the house only to show up again without explanation.

Tension in the Kuhlmann house only gets worse when Adam “Bagman” Ross, a mutual friend from college, happens to be in the neighborhood and in need of a place to stay. Jack is quick to welcome him into the sanctity of their home, but Jack’s strange behavior only gets worse, and Katie fears their new guest is also harboring a dark secret. As she begins to uncover the truth, she realizes that something is terribly wrong–and she must race to protect her family as danger closes in.

Devil’s Kitchen by Candice Fox

Devil's Kitchen

The firefighting crew of Engine 99 has spent years rushing fearlessly into the hot zone of major fires across New York City. This tight-knit, four person unit has faced danger head-on, saving countless lives and stopping raging fires before they can cause major destruction.

They’ve also stolen millions from banks, jewelry stores, and art galleries. Under the cover of saving the city, these men have used their knowledge and specialist equipment to become the most successful heist crew on the East Coast.

Andy Nearland, the newest member of Engine 99, is good at keeping secrets. She’s been brought on to help with their biggest job ever—hitting New York’s largest private storage facility, an expensive treasure trove for the rich and famous.

She’s also an undercover operative, charged with bringing the crew to justice.

Keeping Andy’s true motives hidden proves more and more dangerous as tempers flare and loyalties are tested. And as the clock counts down to the crew’s most daring heist yet, her cover might just go up in flames…

One Wrong Word by Hank Phillippi Ryan

One Wrong Word

One wrong word can ruin your life. And no one knows that better than savvy crisis management expert Arden Ward. Problem is, she’s now forced to handle a shocking crisis of her own. Unfairly accused of having an affair with a powerful client, Arden’s life and dreams are about to crash and burn. Then, Arden is given an ultimatum. She has just two weeks to save her career and her reputation.

Is Cordelia Bannister the answer to her prayers?

Cordelia needs Arden’s help for her husband Ned, a Boston real estate mogul. Though he was recently acquitted in a fatal drunk driving accident, his reputation is ruined, and the fallout is devastating not only to the Bannisters’ lives, but the lives of their two adorable children.

Arden devotes her skill and determination –and maybe her final days on the job–to helping this shattered family, but soon, revelations begin to emerge about what really happened the night of the accident. And then—another car crash throws Ned back into the spotlight.

This case is Arden’s final chance to protect her own future and clear her name. But the more she tries to untangle the truth, the more she’s haunted by one disturbing question—what if she’s also protecting a killer?

Gossip. Lies. Rumors. Words like that can hurt you. And Arden knows the reality. Sometimes one wrong word can kill.

Such a Lovely Family by Aggie Blum Thompson

Such a Lovely Family

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom in Washington, D.C., and the Calhouns are in the midst of hosting their annual party to celebrate the best of the spring season. With a house full of friends, neighbors, and their beloved three adult children, the Calhouns are expecting another picture-perfect event. But a brutal murder in the middle of the celebration transforms the yearly gathering into a homicide scene, and all the guests into suspects.

Behind their façade of perfection, the Calhoun family has been keeping some very dark secrets. Parents who use money and emotional manipulation to control their children. Two sons, one the black sheep who is desperate to outrun mistakes he’s made, and the other a new father, willing to risk everything to protect his child. And a daughter: an Instagram influencer who refuses to face the truth about the man she married.

As the investigation heats up, family tensions build, and alliances shift. Long-buried resentments surface, forcing the Calhouns to face their darkest secrets before it’s too late.

Deep Freeze by Michael C. Grumley

Deep Freeze

The accident came quickly. With no warning. In the dead of night, a precipitous plunge into a freezing river trapped everyone inside the bus. It was then that Army veteran John Reiff’s life came to an end. Extinguished in the sudden rush of frigid water.

There was no expectation of survival. None. Let alone waking up beneath blinding hospital lights. Struggling to move, or see, or even breathe. But the doctors assure him that everything is normal. That things will improve. And yet, he has a strange feeling that there’s something they’re not telling him.

As Reiff’s mind and body gradually recover, he becomes certain that the doctors are lying to him. One by one, puzzle pieces are slowly falling into place, and he soon realizes that things are not at all what they seem. Critical information is being kept from him. Secrets. Supposedly for his own good. But who is doing this? Why? And the most important question: can he keep himself alive long enough to uncover the truth?

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$2.99 Ebook Sale: Land of Shadows by Rachel Howzell Hall

Land of ShadowsThe ebook for Land of Shadows by Rachel Howzell Hall is on sale for $2.99!

About Land of Shadows: Along the ever-changing border of gentrifying Los Angeles, seventeen-year-old Monique Darson is found dead at a condominium construction site. Homicide detective Elouise “Lou” Norton’s new partner, Colin Taggert assumes it’s a teenage suicide, but Lou isn’t buying the easy explanation.

But as she gets closer to the truth, she also gets closer to a violent killer. Can he be brought to justice before Lou becomes his next victim?

Order Your Copy

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This sale ends April 1st.

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Sneak Peek: Air Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan

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Air Time by Hank Phillippi RyanWhen savvy TV reporter Charlotte McNally enters the glamorous world of high fashion, she soon discovers that when the purses are fake–the danger is real.

Charlotte can’t tell the real from the false as she goes undercover to bring the couture counterfeiters to justice and struggles to answer a life-changing question from a certain handsome professor.

The one thing Charlotte knows for sure is that the wrong choice could be the last decision she ever makes.

Air Time, the third book in the award-winning Charlotte McNally series, will be available June 14th.  Please enjoy this excerpt.

CHAPTER ONE

It’s never a good thing when the flight attendant is crying. Franklin, strapped into the seat beside me, his seat back and tray table in the full upright position, headphones on and deep into Columbia Journalism Review, doesn’t notice her tears. But I do.

She’s wearing a name tag that says Tracy, a navy blue pencil skirt, a bow-tied striped scarf, flat- heeled pumps and dripping mascara. We’re sitting on the Baltimore airport tarmac, still attached to the jetway, a full fifteen minutes past our scheduled takeoff for Boston and home. And Tracy’s crying.

I nudge Franklin with my elbow and tilt my head toward her. “Franko, check it out.”

Only Franklin’s eyes move as, with a sigh, he glances up from under his new wire-rimmed glasses. He looks like an owl. Then, without a word, he slowly closes his CJR and finally looks at me. I can see he’s as unnerved as I am. His eyes question, and I have the only answer a television reporter can give.

“Get your cell,” I whisper. “Turn it on.”

“But, Charlotte—” he begins.

He’s undoubtedly going to tell me some Federal Aviation Administration rule about not using cell phones in flight. Like any successful television producer, Franklin always knows all the rules. Like any successful television reporter, I’m more often about breaking them. If it could mean a good story.

“ We’re not in flight.” I keep my voice low. “We haven’t budged on this runway. But one of us—you—is going to get video of whatever it is that’s going on here. The other—me—is going to call the assignment desk back at Channel 3 and see if they know what the heck is happening at this airport.”

I look out my window. Nothing. I look back up at Tracy, who’s now huddling with her colleagues in the galley a few rows in front of us. Their coiffed heads are bent close together and one has a comforting arm around another’s shoulders. The faces I can see look concerned. One looks up and catches me staring. She swipes a tapestry curtain across the aisle, blocking my view.

Part of me is, absurdly, relieved that our takeoff is delayed. I hate takeoffs. I hate landings. I hate flying. And if something terrible has happened, all I can say is, I’m not surprised.

But I have to find out if there’s a story here. Maybe Tracy just has some sort of a personal problem and I’m making breaking news out of a broken heart. I yank my bag from under the seatvin front of me and slide out my own cell phone. Bending double so my phone is buried in my lap, I pretend to sneeze to cover the tim-tee-tum sound of it powering up, then sneeze again to make it more convincing. As I’m contemplating sneeze three, I hear my call to the assignment desk connect.

“It’s me. Charlie,” I whisper. I pause, closing my eyes in annoyance at the response. “Charlie McNally. The reporter? Is this an intern?” I pause again, picturing a newbie twentysomething in over her head. Me, twenty-two years ago. Twenty-three, maybe. I start again, calm. Taking the snark out of my voice. “It’s Charlotte McNally, the investigative reporter? Give me Roger, please.” I glance at the curtain to the galley. Still closed. “Right now.”

Franklin’s up and in the aisle, holding his cell phone as if it’s off as he pretends to take a casual stroll toward the galley curtains. I know he’s got video rolling. I know his phone has a ten-minute photo capacity, and he’s done this so many times he can click it off and on without looking. Talk about a hidden camera. Our fellow passengers will only see an attractive thirtysomething black guy in a preppy pink oxford shirt checking out the flight attendants. I see Franklin Brooks Parrish, my faithful producer, getting the shots we need. What ever is happening— all caught on camera. Exclusive.

“Roger Zelinsky.” Th e night assignment editor’s Boston accent makes it Rah-jah. “What’s up, C?”

“We’re in Baltimore, on the way home from the National Journalism Convention,” I say, still doubled over into my lap and whispering. Luckily Franklin and I had an empty seat between us. A hidden camera is one thing— a hidden forbidden conversation on a cell phone is another. “We’re at the airport. In a plane. On the tarmac.”

“So?” Roger replies.

“Exactly,” I say. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.” I give him the short-version scoop on the tears, the delay, the closed curtain. Franklin’s now made it to the galley, his phone camera nonchalantly pointed at the spot where the curtain would open. But it hasn’t opened. Maybe Tracy broke up with the pilot. Maybe they don’t have enough packages of peanuts. Maybe someone decided to smoke in the bathroom.

Then, even through the fuzzy phone connection, I hear all hell break loose at Channel 3. Strapped in and surrounded by passengers and pillows and carry-on bags, on Flight 632 there’s only the muted sounds of passengers muttering, speculating. But about five hundred miles away, in a Boston television newsroom, bells are ringing and alarms are going off. I know it’s the breaking news signal. The Associated Press is banging out a hot story. I bet it’s centered right here. And any second, I’m gonna know the scoop in Baltimore.

“Runway collision. Two planes. A 737 and some commuter jet. Cessna. I’m reading from the wires, hang on.” Roger’s voice is now urgent. I can picture him, eyes narrowed, racing through the information coming through on his computer. Bulletins appear one or two sentences at a time and with every new addition more alert bells ping. “No casualty count yet. One plane taxiing toward takeoff, one on the ground.”

“The little plane,” I begin. “How many—was it—which—”

“Don’t know,” Roger replies. Terse. The bell pings again and our connection breaks up a bit. “Fire engines,” he says.

I’ve got to get off this plane. I’ve got to get into the terminal. This story is big, it’s breaking, and I’m ready to handle it. “Call you asap,” I whisper, interrupting. “I’m getting out of here.” I turn off the phone, tuck it into my bag, unclasp my seat belt and stand up. Franklin looks over, and I signal with widening eyes and a tilt of my head. Come back.

Franklin glances at the still motionless curtain. He points his phone backward and returns to our seats. Camera rolling. Just in case.

I grab his arm and yank him back into seat 18C. “Listen,” I hiss. “ There’s been a collision on the runway here. Fire, Roger says.” I pause, hoping no one can hear me. “I’ve got to get off this plane and into the airport.”

Franklin wipes away imaginary creases from his still-perfect khakis. I know this means he’s thinking. Calculating. Taking in the information.

“Listen, Charlotte. I know you’re addicted to the news,” he says, voice low. “But you’ve got to get to Boston. Our interview with the Prada P.I. is scheduled for tomorrow morning. She’s meeting us at the airport. It’s between flights for her. It’s tomorrow or never. That’s her schedule.” Franklin apparently has a calendar implanted in his brain.

“She’s got the specs and some inside scoop on counterfeit bags,” he says. “She’s giving us documents from the purse designers. Without her, our ‘fabulous fakes’ story may not be so fabulous.”

He glances toward the galley curtain, so I do, too. Nothing.

“Local reporters can cover the runway incursion,” Franklin continues. “ They’re probably already on the air with what ever the story is. And you’re the big-time investigative reporter, remember? You don’t do breaking news like this anymore. You’ve got to stay on this plane and get back to Boston.”

I know I’m an aging Dalmatian. But when the fire bell rings, I can’t stand to be out of the action. The secret to TV success is being at the right place at the right time. And recognizing it. I flip up the armrests between us, stand up again, and try to edge around Franklin and into the aisle. Luckily I have on flats, so I’ll be able to run if I need to. And my black pants, white T- shirt and black leather jacket will look appropriately serious when I go on camera. I’m heading for significant airtime. And a big story.

“Piffle,” I say. “I can cover this story, make Channel 3 look good, thrill Kevin by providing him with the news director’s dream ‘local reporter on the scene to cover national news’ segment, hop the next plane to Boston and arrive in plenty of time for the meeting. It’s at eleven, after all. You worry too much, Franko. Now, move it.”

Franklin doesn’t budge. “You don’t worry enough, Charlotte. You’re not going anywhere,” he says. He points to seat 18A. “Sit.” I don’t. But I can’t get out unless Franklin moves. I twist toward him, my back crammed against the seat in front of me, my head bowed under the too-short-for-my-five-foot-seven-self curved plastic ceiling of the 737.

“Your suitcase,” he says. “It’s checked. And you ain’t goin’ nowhere without it. After September eleven? Nobody checks a bag, then gets off the plane. Forget about it.”

“Nope,” I say. I try my exit move again, but Franklin is still blocking me. “I got the lattes. You checked both bags, remember? They’re both attached to your ticket. Far as this airline is concerned, I have no baggage. Which means you can pick them both up in Boston and I’ll get mine from you later. There is certainly a morning flight. Which means I’m free to go. And I’m going.”

I see Franklin hesitate. I’ve won.

“Call Josh, okay?” I say, edging my way closer to the aisle. “Tell him . . .” I pause, one hand on the seat back, considering. It looks like yet another news story will keep me from my darling

Josh Gelston. Maybe I should just stay on the plane. Go home. Let the locals cover the story. Have a life with the first man in twenty years who isn’t interested in my celebrity. Or jealous of it. Who isn’t intimidated by my job. Professor Josh Gelston is also the first man in twenty years who, I realize, makes me want to go home. Well, as soon as I can.

“Tell Josh what happened,” I say. “Tell him I’ll be back as soon as I can. Actually, he’s at some school event to night, so just leave a message. And ask him to call Amy to feed Botox. And I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” Josh will understand about the cat sitter. And my situation. I hope.

Franklin smoothes the wrinkles again, then shrugs. And this time, he slides his knees to one side, allowing me to squirm my way out into the aisle. “ They’ll never let you off this plane,” he predicts.

The unfamiliar airport blurs into a collage of gate numbers, flashing lights and rolling suitcases as I snake my way past luggage-toting passengers, blue-uniformed flight crews, maintenance carts and posses of stern-faced TSA officers. I’m focused on finding gate C-47. My cell phone is clamped to my ear, the line open to Channel 3, but no one is on the other end yet. I’m waiting for more updates from Roger. So far all I know is I’m supposed to meet the Baltimore station’s crew—a cameraperson and a live satellite van—from our local network affiliate. We’ll go live as soon as the uplink is set. And as soon as someone tells me what’s happened.

No one in the terminal is running, which seems strange. I don’t see any emergency crews. That’s strange, too. Maybe because it’s all happening in a different terminal. They don’t want to scare anyone.

I wonder if anyone is hurt. I wonder what went wrong. I wonder if there’s a fire. I think about survivors. I think about families. I’ve covered too many plane crashes over the past twenty years. And part of me knows that’s why I’m so unhappy about flying. I try not to admit it, because an investigative reporter is supposed to be tough and fearless. When it comes to air travel, I pretend a lot.

“Yup, I’m here,” I answer the staticky voice now crackling in my ear. The block-lettered signs for Terminal C are pointing me to the left. Following the arrows, I trot through the crowded corridor, listening to Roger tell me the latest. I stop, suddenly, realizing what he’s saying. A Disney-clad family divides in half to get by, throwing annoyed looks as they swarm back together in front of me. I barely notice.

“So, you’re telling me there’s nothing?” I reply. “You’re telling me—no big collision? No casualties? No fire?”

“Yep. Nope,” Roger says. “Apparently one wing tip of a regional jet just touched a 737. On the ground. No passengers in the smaller plane. But the pilot panicked, Maydayed the tower, they sent the alarm, fire crews powered in. Every pi lot on the tarmac picked up the radio traffic—guess that’s how your flight attendant got wind of it. And the Associated Press, of course. It was a close call. But no biggie.”

“So . . .” My adrenaline is fading as I face reality. I plop into a leatherette seat along the wall, stare at my toes, and try to make journalism lemonade. “So, listen. Should we do a story about the close call? Should we do an investigation about crowded runways? Is there a pattern of collisions at the Baltimore airport?”

“Charlie, that’s why we love you,” Roger says with a chuckle. “Always looking for a good story. Does your brain ever turn off ? Come home, kiddo. Thanks for being a team player.”

It’s the best possible outcome, of course, I tell myself as I slowly click my phone closed and tuck it back into my bag. And it’s certainly proof of how a reporter’s perspective gets warped by the quest for airtime. How can anyone be sorry there’s not a plane crash? I smile, acknowledging journalism’s ugliest secret. A huge fire? A string of victims? A multimillion-dollar scam? Bad news is big news. Only a reporter can feel disappointed when the news is good.

But actually, there is good news that I’m happy about. Now I can go home. To Josh. My energy revs as I race to the nearest flight information screen and devour the numbers displayed on the televisions flickering above me. Arrivals. Departures. If I’m lucky, my plane is still hooked to that jetway, doors open. I can get back on board, into 18A, and get home for a late and luscious dinner with Josh. I imagine his welcoming arms swooping me off the floor in a swirling hug. Our “ don’t-stay away-this-long-ever-again” kisses. I imagine skipping dinner.

I find what I’m looking for. Boston, Flight 632. I find what I’m not looking for. Status: Departed.

I drop my tote bag to the tiled floor. Then pick it up again so the airport police don’t whisk it away as an unattended bag. There are no more flights to Boston to night. I’m trapped in Baltimore. Wandering back down the corridor and into the ladies’ room, I’m trying to plan. I twist my hair up with a scrunchie. Take out my contacts. Put on my glasses. No one knows me here. Might as well be comfortable.

I have no story. I also have no clothes, I realize, as I stroll by the bustling baggage claim area. No toothbrush. No contact- lens solution to put my lenses back in tomorrow. No . . .

“Dammit!” A twentysomething girl, teetering on strappy, outrageously high platform sandals, is struggling to wrestle the world’s largest suitcase from the moving convey or belt. I watch as she tugs at the handle with one French-manicured hand, trotting alongside the moving convey or. Her tawny hair swinging across her shoulders, she yanks on the bag’s chocolate-brown leather strap again. And again. But the baggage doesn’t budge, continuing its travel away from her. And almost out of reach. She stamps an impatient foot, then looks around, defeated and annoyed, her hair whirling like one of those girls in a shampoo ad. I look, too, but there are no skycaps in sight.

“Need some help?” I offer. The laws of physics will never allow her the leverage to yank that obviously pricey closet on wheels away from the flapping plastic baffles that cover the entrance to wherever unclaimed baggage goes. Fashion-victim shoes aside, this girl probably lives on diet soda and breath strips.

I put down my tote bag, grab her suitcase handle, and wrench her tan-and-brown monolith from the belt. It lands with a thud on one wheel. We both move to steady it before it topples to the floor.

“Oh, wow. Thank you,” she says. Her voice has the trace of an accent, exotic, but I can’t place it. “I practically live in airports, but usually there is someone to help.”

“Yeah, well, that was clearly going to be a problem,” I say, gesturing to her actually very elegant and certainly expensive designer suitcase. Unless—hmm. I wish the Prada P.I. was here now to tell me if it’s authen tic. “I guess that’s why they call it luggage.”

She stares at me, uncomprehending.

“Lug?” I say. “Luggage?” I try to cover my failed attempt at humor by offering a compliment. “That’s quite the gorgeous bag. Where did you—”

The girl compares her claim check with the one on the bag. It’s tagged ATL, from Atlanta. Although there’s hardly going to be a mistake about who it belongs to. This isn’t one of the black wheelie clones circling the baggage claim.

“Ah, yes, it’s from . . .” She pauses, putting one slim hand on one impossibly slim blue-jeaned hip, and looks me up and down. Assessing, somehow. “ You’ve been so nice to me. Let me ask you. Do you like it?” She points to her suitcase.

She’s not from Atlanta. Canadian? French, maybe? As if she needed to be even more attractive. And she’s asking if I like her suitcase? Maybe it’s a cultural thing. I shrug. “Well, sure.”

The girl holds out a hand. “I’m Regine,” she says. Ray- zheen. “I’m . . .” I begin to introduce myself, shaking her hand. But she’s still talking.

“If you are interested in designer bags? Like this one?” She waits for my answer, head tilted, one eyebrow lifted.

“Well, of course, I . . .”

“Then here,” she interrupts again. She digs into her recognizably logo-covered pouch of a purse, pulls out a cream-colored business card, and presents it to me with what looks like a conspiratorial smile.

I glance at it, then back at her. Her eyes are twinkling, as if she has a secret. And I guess she does. “Designer Doubles?” I read from the card. I look back at her suitcase. This day is getting a whole lot more interesting. And potentially a whole lot more valuable. Talk about the right place at the right time. Thank you, news gods.

“Designer Doubles? You mean, your suitcase is not really . . . ?” I pretend to be baffled.

“Not a bit,” she replies. She pats her purse. “And neither is this one. But they are perfect, are they not? The website on that card will tell you where you can find a purse party. And there, you can buy one for yourself.”

“Well, my goodness,” I say, allowing my eyes to go wide. As if I’m considering some fabulously tempting offer. “I think I’ve heard about this in magazines.”

“Exactly.” Regine nods, as if the lust for luxury somehow bonds us. She twirls her bag on one wheel, ready to join the swirl of departing passengers heading for the exit. “My pleasure.”

And she’s gone.

Buy one for myself, she’d suggested. What a very lovely idea.

Tucking the card safely into a zippered pocket of my tote bag, I’m already reworking our story. Talk about the right place at the right time. If this all goes as I hope, I am indeed going to buy one for myself. Perhaps several. But what Regine doesn’t know is I’ll be doing it in disguise. Undercover. And carrying a hidden camera. This glossy, expensive little business card could be my ticket to journalism glory.

If I don’t get caught.

Copyright © 2009 by Hank Phillippi Ryan

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Sneak Peek: Trail of Echoes by Rachel Howzell Hall

Trail of Echoes by Rachel Howzell HallOn a rainy spring day in Los Angeles, homicide detective Elouise “Lou” Norton is called away from a rare lunch date to Bonner Park, where the body of thirteen-year-old Chanita Lords has been discovered. When Lou and her partner, Colin Taggert, take on the sad task of informing Chanita’s mother, Lou is surprised to find herself in the apartment building she grew up in.

Trail of Echoes is the latest Elouise Norton novel from critically acclaimed writer Rachel Howzell Hall. Please enjoy this excerpt.

Chapter 1

At twelve thirty on a rainy Wednesday after noon, I was breaking one of my cardinal rules as a homicide detective: Never eat lunch with civilians. But on that Wednesday in March, I sat at a Formica- topped table in Johnny’s Pastrami with no ordinary citizen.

Assistant District Attorney Sam Seward had eyes the color of mint leaves, hands that could palm Jupiter, and a mind agile enough to grasp the story arc of Game of Thrones.

I had a crush on Sam.

He liked me, too, even though I associated “bracelets” with “handcuffs” and smelled of gun oil more than lavender. And so when he had asked if I wanted to grab a pastrami with him, I had immediately chirped, “Sure. Why not?” I wanted to have Normal People Lunch with ketchup that squirted from bottles and conversations about March Madness instead of murders, bodies, and blood. More than that, I wanted to have Normal People Lunch with Sam.

And now he smiled at me like the secret goof he was. And I futzed with the belt of my cowl- necked sweater like the nervous virgin I hadn’t been in twenty years.

Outside, clouds the color of Tahitian black pearls and drizzle softened the crimson glare of car brake lights. Inside, the diner smelled of meat and onions, and George Harrison crooned from hidden speakers about the way she moves.

“Elouise Norton,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I cannot believe it.”

I nibbled a sliver of pastrami. “Why not? I do violence all day.”

“Which is why I can’t believe you’d watch a show on your downtime that’s all decapitations and grit for an hour and three minutes.”

I gasped. “You made me watch it.”

He smoothed his slate- blue tie. “ Couldn’t talk to you about the Darson case forever.”

Sam was prosecuting Max Crase, the man who had murdered high school cheerleader Monique Darson, her sister Macie, and my sister Victoria. Now recovering from a brain tumor, Max Crase had pled insanity. And well . . . “insane” was just one word I’d use to describe him.

“Nor do I want to talk about the Darson case now.” I smiled at Sam, then pointed at his face. “You have mustard . . .”

He squinted at me. “Get it off, then.”

My heart pounded— I loved challenges.

I waited a moment . . . then leaned forward.

He moved aside sandwich baskets and almost- full glasses of Diet Coke, then leaned forward but only a little. “Closer,” he demanded.

I waited . . . then obeyed.

His butterscotch- colored cheeks flushed.

With his face an inch away from mine, I parted my lips.

And the bell tower tolled: the ringtone for Lieutenant Zak Rodriguez.

Sam crooked his neck, going for the kiss.

But the bell tower tolled again— louder and crankier this time.

“Sounds official,” Sam whispered.

Going cold, I sank into my seat. “It’s my boss.” I reached for Sam’s hand as my other hand grabbed the phone from my purse.

“Where you at?” Lieutenant Rodriguez asked.

“Having pastrami and soda pop.”

“With Taggert?”

Sam kissed my hand before he let go.

“Nope.”

“Pepe and Luke?”

I pushed my bangs off my flushed forehead. “Nuh uh.”

Lieutenant Rodriguez sighed. “Please say you’re not with your ex.”

“ Don’t worry. I’m not.”

“Hate to break it up, but you’re on deck. Some joggers found a body up in Bonner Park.”

My ankle holster, stuffed now with my lunch gun, pinched my skin— death had a way of yanking you from Wonderland. “ Really? This early in the day?”

“And whoever left it there is one cold son of a bitch.”

“ Aren’t they all?”

“He put it in one of those large duffel bags, the kind soldiers carry. And he left it there on the trail. In this weather.”

Outside our window, the wind had picked up, making palm fronds frantic and street signs swing. Back in the calm mustiness of Johnny’s, someone had dropped a quarter into the tabletop jukebox and had pressed E6: Olivia Newton- John asking if I’ve ever been mellow.

“Yeah,” Lieutenant Rodriguez was saying, “and where he left it? Up on that trail? It ain’t the typical boneyard. Anyway, I’ll call Taggert and we’ll meet you over there. Maybe you shoulda had one of your salads today. Edamame and shit instead of all that meat.”

Martha Bonner Park. Hills, trees, valleys— a beautiful jewel in the city’s crown. I jogged, hiked, and fed ducks there whenever I wasn’t watching divers pull guns and bodies out of its murky- green fake lake.

“Gotta go?” Sam asked, eyes on his iPhone.

“Yep.”

“Same here. I’m helping to plan Congresswoman Fortier’s jazz funeral.”

“Saturday, right?”

He nodded. “A second line down Crenshaw. A horse, a brass band, all of it.”

I dug in my purse for the car keys. “How many permits did you all have to pull for a New Orleans homegoing in the middle of Los Angeles?”

He rubbed his face. “You have no idea. And I hear all of NOLA is coming to usher her into the great beyond.” He emerged from behind his hands with a smile. “But I’m glad we had a moment to ourselves.”

I blushed. “Me too.”

Even though this was our first date, nothing else needed to be said or explained. I gotta go. No apology, no weird hostility. He, too, had to keep LA from exploding.

Oh, how I liked Sam.

Hand in hand, we walked to the parking lot, stopping at the light- blue Crown Vic that would stink of mildew until August.

“So you owe me.” Towering over me, Sam rested his hands on my waist.

I tensed, aware of my bulky ballistics vest, hoping that he didn’t think that was all . . . me. “Owe you? For what?”

“For ending our lunch so soon.”

I shivered— not because of the forty- degree weather. “Bullshit. We were basically done.”

“I wanted pie.”

I straightened the collar of his black wool overcoat. “Fine. You’ll get your pie.”

Then, my freakin’ iPhone caw- cawed from my pocket: the ringtone for Colin Taggert, my partner of nine months.

Sam dropped his hands and backed away from me. “If your case is a dunker, come over to night and watch something other than a basketball game. You could bring pie.”

“Maybe.”

“You’ll call me?”

“Yes.”

And the eagle caw- cawed again: America was calling.

I plucked the phone from my pocket. “I’m on my way,” I told Colin, slipping behind the Ford’s steering wheel. In the rearview mirror, I watched Sam climb into his black Bimmer.

“The body in the—” Colin sneezed, then sneezed again. “The body in the park. Prepare yourself: it’s a girl.”

Just when you’re trying to be mellow.

Copyright © 2016 by Rachel Howzell Hall

Trail of Echoes comes out May 31st. Pre-order it today: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-a-Million | iBooks | Indiebound | Powell’s

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How to Dress for a Murderer

Design for Dying by Renee PatrickWritten by Renee Patrick

In our novel Design for Dying, Lillian Frost, a New Yorker transplanted to Hollywood, teams up with costume designer Edith Head in 1937 to solve the murder of an up-and-coming starlet. Lillian is a character of our own creation, but fans of classic Hollywood will surely recognize the name Edith Head.

Edith (we hope she’d forgive the informality) remains a legend to this day. Nominated for 35 Academy Awards during her career she took home eight statuettes, more than any other woman. Over an almost 60-year career she designed costumes for films as varied as Double Indemnity, Sabrina, To Catch a Thief and Vertigo. Stars like Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Stanwyck, Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly wore her creations on screen and off. Her public persona remains iconic; the large glasses, brunette bangs and stern expression were an inspiration for Edna Mode in the 2004 Pixar film The Incredibles.

“Nothing is deader than last year’s high style.” – Edith Head

In researching late 1930’s movie production we read histories of costume design, swooning over coffee table books showcasing page after page of glamorous gowns. We watched movies from the era wondering how secretaries and nurses could afford satin lingerie and mink wraps. (Answer: realism was not a goal for movie studios appealing to Depression-era audiences.) We learned everything we could about how a costume designer in 1937 would approach her work.

The real Edith Head was more difficult to get a bead on. Biographies of the designer contradict each other. Turning to Edith’s own accounts of her life didn’t clarify matters; in her books The Dress Doctor (1959) and How To Dress For Success (1967) she embellished the story of her life. More fascinatingly, she also provided fashion advice for the average woman.

“Divorce yourself from styles that do not suit you, even though your soul yearns for them.” – Edith Head

Some of her counsel reads like the artifacts of a bygone era. An appendix in The Dress Doctor includes suggestions on what the busy woman should wear for her various activities, like attending dog races (sport dress, hat optional), skeet shooting (frontier trousers, visored cap) and grocery shopping (“Many women wear pants for marketing, even in cities — very few should.”).

At other times her guidance has the no-punches-pulled common sense we tried to bring to our fictionalized Edith. Who could argue with maxims like: “It isn’t those who spend the most money who are the most smartly dressed.”? And surely there are people today who would benefit from her counsel to the aspiring executive: “On the way up … distinction without flamboyance should be your credo.”

Edith’s philosophy of costume design was straightforward. “The story is your Bible,” she wrote in The Dress Doctor. “First and above all, what kind of character are we dressing?” The book sparkles with stories of a perfectionist Marlene Dietrich spending days working with Edith to create the wardrobe for Witness for the Prosecution, consummate actress Bette Davis throwing herself on the fitting room couch to ensure each dress for All About Eve would stand up to the action and Gloria Swanson delivering homemade whole wheat bread to the studio while Edith labored over the costumes for Sunset Blvd.

Stories like these brought Hollywood’s golden age to life and ignited our imaginations. As far as we know, the real Edith Head didn’t solve any murders, but with such a clear-eyed view of human nature she’d have made a terrific detective.

Buy Design for Dying today:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-a-Million | iBooks | Indiebound | Powell’s

Find out more about Renee Patrick on Twitter at @RPatrickBooks and on her website.

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Sneak Peek: Face Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Face Time by Hank Phillippi RyanFace Time by Boston Globe bestseller and Emmy-winning reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan is the second book in the award-winning, out-of-print Charlotte McNally series, now repackaged for her many new fans!

Veteran TV reporter Charlotte McNally fights for justice, journalism — and the battle against on-air aging. She knows that despite years of experience, she’s only as good as her most recent blockbuster story. The good news: she’s got explosive evidence that could free an innocent woman from prison. Dorinda Keller confessed to killing her husband, but the evidence doesn’t add up. Why would an innocent person confess to cold-blooded murder?

The bad news: her investigation makes Charlotte — and someone she loves — the real killer’s next target. Charlotte knows she has what it takes to get the story. Unfortunately, the more Charlotte snoops around, the more people turn up dead. Please enjoy this excerpt.

CHAPTER ONE

It’s statistically impossible that my mother is always right. So why doesn’t she seem to know it?

Besides, it’s demonstrably true that I’m not always wrong. I have twenty-one Emmys for investigative reporting—won number twenty-one after I was stalked by murderous thugs, threatened by insider-trading CEOs and held at gunpoint by a money-hungry sociopath who I proved was mastermind of a nationwide insider-trading scandal. Every one of them is in prison now. So I must have been right about a lot of things.

But at this moment, struggling for balance on a cushily upholstered chair at Mom’s bedside in New England’s most exclusive cosmetic surgery center, somehow I no longer feel like the toast of Boston television. I feel more like toast. Once again, I’m a gawky, awkward, nearsighted adolescent, squirming under the assessing eye of Lorraine Carpenter McNally. Two months from now, provided her face heals in time for the wedding, she’ll be Lorraine Carpenter McNally Margolis.

“Charlotte,” Mother says. “Stop frowning. You’re making lines.”

Millions of viewers know me as Charlie McNally. I’m not Charlie to my mother, though. As she’s repeatedly told me, my news director, my producer Franklin Parrish, my ex-husband Sweet Baby James, admirers who hail me on the street, and certainly Josh Gelston when she meets him: “Nicknames are for stuffed animals and men who have to play sports.” After that pronouncement, she always adds: “If I’d wanted a child named Charlie, I would have had a boy and named him that.”

Mom and I do better by long distance. Most of our conversations begin with me telling her about something I’ve done. Then she tells me what I should have done. Then I ask why nothing I do is ever good enough. Then she insists she’s not “criticizing,” she’s “observing.” As long as she stays in her skyscraping lake-view condo in Chicago, we do a good job pretending we’re a close-knit pair.

But here she is in my hometown, swaddled in a frothy peach hospital gown, surrounded by crystal vases of fragrant June peonies, reclining against down pillows. She insists that I shouldn’t come visit her every day, saying she’s sure I have better things to do. Patients “of a certain age” who have “extensive surgery” stay here through recovery, minimum fourteen days. So this is going to be an interesting couple of weeks. And by interesting I mean impossible.

At least Mom doesn’t look as bad as I expected for a few hours after surgery. No bruises yet, no puffy eyes. She’s got bags of what look like frozen peas Ace bandaged to each side of her face to keep down the swelling, and I can still see the little needle marks where her precious Dr. Garth injected Restylane to erase the lines in her forehead.

“All the pretty girls are doing it,” she says. She would have given me her trademark raised eyebrow for emphasis, I’m sure, if she could move her eyebrows. “And if you don’t make an appointment with the plastic surgeon at your age…” Her voice trails off, apparently rendered speechless by my continuing refusal to face reality. She settles into her plump nest of pillows, adjusts her peas and pushes harder. “Charlotte, you know I’m right, and…”

Keeping my face appropriately attentive, I begin a mental list of all the things I should be doing at nine-thirty on a Monday night instead of babysitting with my mother. Thinking about a blockbuster story for the July ratings. Calling Franklin to see if he’s come up with another Emmy winner. Making sure I have a bathing suit that won’t freak out my darling Josh, who has only known me since last October and has not yet encountered my forty-six-year-old self in anything but sleek reporter suits or jeans and chunky sweaters or strategically lacy lingerie. Under dim lights.

“And local TV is so—local.…” Lorraine is reprising one of her favorite themes. Why is it, she wonders, that I’ve never wanted to move to New York and hit the networks? Or at least move home to Chicago, where she could set me up with a handpicked tycoon husband who would convince me to abandon my television career and become a tycoon wife? For the past twenty years I’ve told her I’m fulfilled by my career and am comfortable being single again. Mother makes it clear I’m wrong about this.

I look dutifully contemplative, nod a couple of times and continue my mental should-be-doing list. Feed Botox, who’s probably already ripped the mail to shreds and tipped over her litter box to prove who’s boss. E-mail best friend Maysie, who’s at Fenway Park covering the Red Sox, and see what I’m supposed to bring to her annual Fourth of July cookout. Call Nora and make sure my younger sister will take her turn at mom-sitting when Mother finally goes home. Dig up a book about adolescent girls and see how experts suggest I deal with Josh’s daughter Penny.

Penny. Right.

I’ve been to war zones, chased politicians through parking lots, wired myself with hidden cameras, even battled through the annual bridal gown extravaganza in Filene’s Basement, but spending my summer vacation days with a surly eight-year-old and her blazingly attractive father? This may be my toughest assignment ever. Not counting the bathing suit.

“Look in the mirror,” Mother urges. She starts to point, but then, after a quick scan, apparently realizes the flatteringly lit pink walls of her posh little room—which looks more like plush grand hotel than sterile hospital—don’t have any mirrors.

She forges ahead, undaunted by reality. “Well, find a mirror, and look in it,” she says. “Charlotte, this isn’t a criticism, it’s an observation. I’m your mother. If I don’t tell you, who will? Your neck is, well, worrisome, and you’ll instantly see how your cheeks are drooping.”

Happily for our relationship, there’s a soft knock on the door. As it opens, Mother’s expression softens from imperious to flirtatious. Talk about worrisome. Still, I’ve got to give her credit for believing she’s alluring in that frozen pea and Ace bandage getup. Wisps of her newly reblonded hair escape in a way she’d never allow if there were mirrors, but she’s still got the McNally brown eyes and Gramma Nell’s good posture. If it’s true we become our mothers, I guess I’m not going to be so bad at sixty-eight. Plus, the nursing staff at the New England Center for Cosmetic Surgery is certainly used to women in the awkward stages of transformation.

“Miz McNally?” A romance novel cover-model wannabe in a white oxford button-down and even whiter pants consults the chart clamped to the foot of Mom’s bed. His smile is snowier still. “I’m Nurse Justin. How are we feeling?” He clicks some switches on a bedside contraption, checking the heart and respiration monitors the center requires for every patient. Mom coos at him as he muscles a rolling bed table across her lap, pretending she doesn’t want to take her latest round of pills because the painkillers make her “silly.”

Nurse Justin is just one of the pill-dispensing glamour boys I’ve seen in the center’s modishly fashionable nursing whites. Some are older and gray-templed, some younger with panache-y little ponytails, but they all look like they’ve just come from shooting the latest Ralph Lauren catalog, and only do this nursing thing in their spare time. I don’t know how the center gets away with this obviously discriminatory hiring practice. Plus, who’d want a hunky guy seeing you as a before? Mother, apparently, is all for it.

I tune back in to her chitchat. It’s about me.

“On Channel 3,” I hear Mother explaining. “Charlotte, dear,” she says. “I hope you’re going to be on the news tonight. We’d love to watch you.”

Not a chance, of course. It’s now almost ten o’clock, and the news goes on the air at eleven. But Mother has never understood how television works.

“Nope,” I say, smiling as if this isn’t a ridiculous question. And, I grudgingly realize, she’s just being a proud mom, which is actually very sweet. “I do long-term investigative stories,” I explain to the nurse, just an amiable daughter joining the conversation. “I’m only on the air when we’ve uncovered something big. So, nothing tonight.” I shrug. “Sorry.”

Nurse Justin’s face suddenly changes to a scowl, which is baffling until I see he’s pointing at my tote bag. Which is ringing. “No cell phones allowed in guests’ rooms,” he says, still scowling. “Strict rules. We’re all about patient privacy. And quiet. Cell phones are allowed only in the outer lobby.”

I cringe. “Forgot to turn it off when I left the station,” I say, which is true. I whap it to Off without even checking the number, figuring Justin will forgive me my first transgression, and whoever is calling will call back. His face begins to soften—and then my purse starts beeping.

I dive for the beeper they still make me carry, knowing full well I forgot to turn that off, too. I push the kill button, but the illuminated green letters that pop up are inescapable. CALL DESK, it demands. RIGHT NOW. And if that weren’t attention-getting enough, a second screen flashes up at me. NEED U LIVE FOR ELEVEN PM NEWS.

Mom was right again.

Copyright © 2009 by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Buy Face Time today: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-a-Million | Indiebound | Powell’s

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Sneak Peek: Cape Hell by Loren D. Estleman

Cape HellU.S. Deputy Page Murdock is ordered to Cape Hell, Mexico, to verify a report that former Confederate Captain Oscar Childress is raising an army to take over Mexico City–and then intends to turn north to rekindle the Civil War.

With only Hector Cansado, an engineer who can’t be trusted and Joseph, a Native American fireman with a few secrets of his own, Murdock hurtles through the murderous desert of a foreign land toward a man bent on wholesale massacre . . . unless Murdock can stop him. Enjoy an excerpt from Cape Hell by Loren D. Estleman, coming out May 10. Already read chapter one? Criminal Element has chapters two and three!

CHAPTER ONE

Halfway back to civilization, Lefty Dugan began to smell.

It was my own fault, partly; I’d stopped on the north bank of the Milk River like some tenderheel fresh out of Boston instead of crossing and pitching camp on the other side. I was worn down to my ankles, and the sorry buckskin I was riding sprouted roots on the spot and refused to swim. The pack horse was game enough; either that, or it was too old to care if it was lugging a dead man or a month’s worth of Arbuckle’s. But it couldn’t carry two, especially when one was as limp as a sack of stove-bolts and just as heavy. I was getting on myself and in no mood to argue, so I unpacked my bedroll.

A gully-washer square out of Genesis soaked my slicker clear through and swelled the river overnight. I rode three days upstream before I found a place to ford, by which time even the plucky pack horse was breathing through its mouth. In Chinook I hired a buckboard and put in to the mercantile for salt to pack the carcass, but the pirate who owned the store mistook me for Vanderbilt, and then the Swede who ran the livery refused to refund the deposit I’d made on the wagon. So I buried Lefty in the shadow of the Bearpaws and rode away from five hundred cartwheel dollars on a mount I should have shot and left to feed what the locals call Montana swallows: magpies, buzzards, and carrion crows.

(more…)

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Duck and Cover

Night Work by David C. Taylor

Written by David C. Taylor

I grew up in New York City in the 1950’s at the height of the Cold War. This was the New York of my novel, Night Life (Nominee for Best Novel for the 2016 Edgar Awards), and this year’s Night Work. The Communist bloc was bent on our destruction, and everyone knew the Cold War could go hot at any moment. The idea that the whole world could blow up in minutes was always present. But at school we were going to be okay, the adults told us, because they had a strategy that was going to save our lives in the event of a nuclear attack:  DUCK AND COVER. When the air raid sirens sounded, we were to get down under our desks and cross our arms over our faces, and we were commanded to NEVER LOOK AT THE WINDOW. We would be blinded by the flash, we were told. Blinded by the flash?! Even the dimmest kid in school understood that if the Commies dropped an atom bomb on Central park, the accepted ground zero, we, in a school three blocks away, no matter how strong our desks, were going to be turned into cosmic snot. Not look at the window?! If the choice for a last sight in life was the crook of your elbow or a bright, white light, everyone was going to look at the window.

What I took away from that was a disappointed understanding that the adults who lead us often have no real clue, or they are not telling us the truth. We often allow ourselves to be led by the power hungry, the self-serving, the narrow minded, the unimaginative. The protagonist of the Night Life and Night Work, the New York cop Michael Cassidy, runs up against Senator Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, J. Edgar Hoover, agents for the CIA and the FBI, Fidel Castro, and KGB operatives, and he discovers they all have a common trait. They promote fear to gain power, and once they have the power, they use it to promote more power. They often wrap their campaigns in idealism, but the idealism soon disappears. Cassidy is not a cynic, but rather is a romantic pragmatist. He sees the world around him as it is, yet he has a deep need for it to be the better place he knows it can be. He knows that power tends to corrupt, but he is hopeful that it will not. He became a cop, I think, as an antidote to cynicism.

In writing historical fiction like Night Life and Night Work, about the not-too-distant 1950’s, one can hold up a mirror to the present. It’s a bit like a funhouse mirror, distorted in its image, but it does remind us that the human weaknesses that bent our leaders then are present in our leaders now. Our enemies were real then, and they are real now, but the responses proposed are often shortsighted, incomplete, designed for immediate political gain more than for long lasting solutions.

George Santanaya, the Spanish born philosopher and poet, said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Here we go again. Duck and cover.

Buy Night Work today:
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Sneak Peek: Design for Dying by Renee Patrick

Design for Dying by Renee PatrickLos Angeles, 1937. Lillian Frost has traded dreams of stardom for security as a department store salesgirl . . . until she discovers she’s a suspect in the murder of her former roommate, Ruby Carroll. Ruby died wearing a gown she stole from the wardrobe department at Paramount Pictures, domain of Edith Head.

Edith has yet to win the first of her eight Academy Awards; right now she’s barely hanging on to her job, and a scandal is the last thing she needs. To clear Lillian’s name and save Edith’s career, the two women join forces in Design for Dying by Renee Patrick.

Chapter 1

THE HEM OF the dress was drenched in blood. I could only hope no one would notice.

“If a romantic afternoon listening to the Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl is in your plans, try this stunning gray worsted suit that will ensure his eyes are on YOU, not the stage. A nipped-in waist and mauve accents bring out the natural beauty that any lover—music lover, that is—will appreciate.”

A graceful model strolled a platform in front of fifty Los Angeles ladies of leisure. Tremayne’s fall fashion show brought them to the department store to lunch, browse, and with any luck spend thousands. Every shopgirl had been pressed into service in the backstage frenzy of last-minute alterations. Some of us were better at it than others. Still bleeding from where a needle had pierced me, I pushed the next beauty forward and dragged myself clear of traffic.

(more…)

Starred Kirkus Review: Lucky Bastard by Deborah Coonts

Starred Kirkus Review: Lucky Bastard by Deborah Coonts

Image Placeholder of - 67“If you’re entertained by sex, innuendo and a few fantasies you’d like to see played out—and who isn’t?—you ought to have Lucky and her extended Vegas family (So Damn Lucky, 2012, etc.) on speed dial.”

Lucky Bastard, by Deborah Coonts, gets a starred review in Kirkus Reviews!*

Here’s the full review, from the April 1 issue:

Image Place holder  of - 45 Like everything else in Vegas, the corpse is displayed extravagantly, draped over the hood of a candy apple red Ferrari, the heel of a Jimmy Choo stiletto embedded in her neck.

Lucky O’Toole, that lusty, wryly self-deprecating troubleshooter for the glitzy Babylon Casino, is patching up the ding the departing cabaret singer Teddie left in her heart by drooling over French chef Jean Charles. She’s just fired the much-loathed poker room manager and secured a seat at the high-stakes table for a deaf young man when she’s called on to deal with the dead woman perched on the pricey Ferrari spotlighted in the casino’s dealership. Babylon security tapes show the soon-to-be-dead gal cheating but losing big anyway, then getting followed from the card table by Dane, her soon-to-be ex. As Lucky and Detective Romeo try to round him up, other problems surface. The poker room manager is poisoned. Shady Slim Grady, who always shows up for the big-stakes poker tournament, turns up dead in his plane, and his wife, bimbo Betty Sue, insists on sending him off with a gaudy Celebration of Life party. The deaf kid disappears. Offshore betting sites come into play. A storm makes Lucky traipse through Vegas sewer pipes after a mystery woman. Jean Charles’ 5-year-old son is due to arrive from France, and Lucky is scared to meet him. The Department of Justice is running a sting operation that has as much a chance of succeeding as the mayoral campaign of Lucky’s mom, a former madam now hitched to the Babylon’s Big Boss. Then, just as matters are simmering down, Teddie returns.

If you’re entertained by sex, innuendo and a few fantasies you’d like to see played out—and who isn’t?—you ought to have Lucky and her extended Vegas family (So Damn Lucky, 2012, etc.) on speed dial.

Lucky Bastard will be published on May 14th.

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