New Signed Books From The Poisoned Pen

Cat in a Sapphire Slipper by Carole Nelson Douglas, the twentieth title in the sassy Midnight Louie mystery series, is a fast-paced, racy mystery with a lovable cast of characters and one terrific tough dude to keep them all in line. The tough-talking, twenty-pound, tomcat PI is as feisty as ever as he and his gang try to keep his favorite roommate from losing her man.

PR honcho Temple Barr’s romance novelist aunt Kit has wound up in a romantic plot of her own. She’s snagged one of the most eligible bachelors on the Strip, one of the elder Fontana brothers, a silver-tongued reputed ex-mobster with a heart of gold.

There is to be a wedding…and where there is a wedding there is usually a bachelor party. Things go disastrously wrong when the entire party is hijacked and taken to a remote ranch out in the Nevada desert, a place where the women are wild and the sex is legal. And among the group? None other than Temple’s own Matt, an ex-priest.

Truly a fish out of water, he soon comes upon a beautiful young woman who is quite naked and most thoroughly dead. Given the remoteness of the location with very few suspects on hand (plus the Fontanas' shady reputation) this could be a very bad thing indeed.

And Louie? Well, he managed to go along for the ride and once again it’s up to that big old tomcat to bail out his humans and save the day.

Tiny Little Troubles by Marc Lecard, the critically acclaimed author of Vinnie's Head, is a fast-paced crime story about an eccentric thug chasing after a piece of nano-technology and the scientist that created it.

Aaron Rogell is a brilliant San Francisco scientist with a nanotech start-up, a beautiful wife, and a brand-new baby. But Aaron has an ugly little problem; he just can't keep it in his pants. Ignoring business and family, he spends most of his quality time with an upscale call girl named Aphrodite, a toothless street hooker, and other less presentable companions. But when one of Aphrodite's lowlife acquaintances--the fearsome Pablo Clench--learns that her new boyfriend has invented a miraculous technology that may be worth fabulous sums of money, life for Aaron Rogell will never be the same again. And soon, Aaron, his wife and child, the bad guys, and just about everyone else ends up with lots of tiny little troubles.

Night Kill by Ann Littlewood
Iris Oakley, a young zookeeper at the Finley Memorial Zoo in Vancouver, Washington, hopes to reconcile with her newly sober husband, Rick. But when he’s found dead—and dead drunk—in the lion exhibit, a paralyzing mix of grief and anger at his betrayal keeps Iris from questioning the assumptions around his death. But Iris’ friends motivate her to prove that her husband could not have died the way it appears. Soon, however, these same friends impede her progress as she follows ambiguous clues and sorts through unlikely motives. Meanwhile, Iris must also adjust to losing her beloved job as feline keeper and instead learn to be a bird keeper. The zoo’s veterinarian respects her skills, but the foreman would far rather she get a job elsewhere—and the senior bird keeper seems to agree. After Iris survives a series of near-fatal “accidents,” she begins to understand what really happened to Rick. But Iris must survive to prove it....

Buried Lies by Peter Rennebohm
Gus Ivy was restless, so he thought he d test retirement by spending the winter with friends in Arizona. Endless rounds of golf convinced him that such an idle life probably was not for him. On a particularly restless day, Gus visits his barber and discovers an obscure Sagebrush western written by a favorite author. He s excited to add it to his collection, and negotiates a buy with Frank, the barber. Unfortunately, the sixty-year old Cavity Lake Gang has drawn the attention of a band of cutthroats who will stop at nothing to get their hands on Gus s copy. He doesn t know why the book is so valuable only that he is determined to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Together with a mysterious woman from Montana, Gus and his new friend, set off on a quest that will take them to the Navajo Indian Nation in Northeast Arizona, and beyond. It s a chilling race against a decades-old deadline and a bunch of ruthless killers a race to solve a fascinating puzzle embedded within the book, but the end game may prove too costly as multiple deaths and a kidnapping litter their trail.

The Leper by Steve Thayer
A veteran of World War I, John Severson becomes a school teacher in a tough, working-class St. Paul neighborhood where a high school diploma is a rarity. Severson has dreams, aspirations. But something had happened to him during the war, something awful. And it follows him home and changes every part of his life. John Severson becomes a leper. Instantly he is torn from his dreams, disconnected from his beautiful plan, ripped from the woman he loves. But Severson is determined to reclaim what he lost, to overcome the horror that is leprosy, to dream again.

Crime by Irvine Welsh brings his brand of mayhem to the glitzed-out, drugs-and-danger state of Florida.

In the wake of a nasty child-murder case, Detective Inspector Ray Lennox of the Edinburgh PD has suffered a full-scale breakdown. He's been placed on leave for mental retuning and takes off for a few days of sun in Miami. From there, Crime becomes an unmistakably Welshian blend of the macabre and the psychologically astute, as Lennox faces a dwindling supply of antidepressants, a bridal-magazine-toting fiancée who wants him to think seriously about floral arrangements, and some coke-happy locals who lead him back into old habits. Is he really in the right shape to be playing knight-errant to a terrified ten-year-old girl? Will his best instincts and worst judgments get them both killed, or find him the redemption he seeks?