The fifth tension-laden adventure for Carol Ashton, featuring the classic closed room puzzle mystery buffs adore

"A romping good time!"-LesbiaNation.com on The Wombat Strategy Owning half a detective agency is not as exciting as it sounds when your partner won't let you solve any cases. Transplanted Aussie Kylie Kendall is frustrated as all get out, and she spends most of her time hanging out with her receptionist and sampling the Los Angeles nightlife. But that's about to change. Twins Alf and Chica Hartnidge, the hosts of Australia's hit children's television show The Oz Mob, hire Kylie to find out who's smuggling opals into the United States inside their Kelvin Kookaburra plush toys. A syndication deal and a load of money are riding on whether Kylie will shut down the smugglers, but a murder (or two) makes the stakes even higher

Praise for The Wombat Strategy: "We can't help loving sleuth Kylie Kendall… [she] is such a charmer, we'll follow her wherever her brunette ambitions take her."-Girlfriends "The first of what I hope will be lots and lots of mysteries featuring the oh-so-cute Aussie dyke, Kylie Kendall."-She "Saucy, witty, and blessed with a healthy dose of Aussie tenacity, Kendall is everything a girl could want in a lead character."-LesbiaNation.com Kylie Kendall is hired for a routine security detail to prevent an academic rival from disrupting Dr. Oscar Braithwaite's keynote address at UCLA's Global Marsupial Symposium. Sounds easy enough to be downright dull, but then Dr. Braithwaite is murdered, and his sister, the sexually voracious and irresistibly attractive Dr. Penelope Braithwaite, hires Kylie to investigate his death. Can Kylie keep from mixing business with oh-so-much pleasure? Can she remain true to her barely requited love for her ice-queen business partner, Arianna Creeling? Oh yes, and can she figure out who killed Oscar? All of these questions and more are answered in this latest installment of Claire McNab's Kylie Kendall mystery series. Transplanted Australian Claire McNab is the author of two other Kylie Kendall mysteries, The Wombat Strategy and The Kookaburra Gambit. She has also written 18 best-selling mystery novels, 14 featuring the popular Detective Inspector Carol Ashton and four featuring undercover agent Denise Cleever. She has served as the president of Sisters in Crime and is a member of both the Mystery Writers of America and the Science Fiction Writers of America. She lives in Los Angeles

An anthology of stories edited by Sara Paretsky This eclectic anthology from a variety of female mystery writers has something to please every fan. Editor and contributor Paretsky (V.I. Warshawski series) introduces the anthology with a brief history of Sisters in Crime, an organization formed by Paretsky in 1987 to help boost the profiles of women crime writers. The stories range in tone from Sue Henry's (Jessie Arnold series) haunting, lyrical "Sister Death" to "Murder for Lunch," Carolyn Hart's (Death on Demand series) tale of misunderstandings and murder. Libby Fischer Hellmann (Ellie Foreman series) and Susan Dunlap (Jill Smith series) both tackle the turbulent world of 1960s radicals from different perspectives, with tales of a captured fugitive and violent conflicts with the police. The collection also includes an early story from the late Charlotte MacLeod's impressive body of work, as well as a new story from Dorothy Salisbury Davis, a pioneer in the genre since the 1950s. Mystery fans will delight in reading new pieces from old favorites, as well as discovering new voices from every corner of this diverse genre

"We can't help loving sleuth Kylie Kendall… We'll follow her wherever her brunette ambitions take her."-Girlfriends Kylie may still be a private eye in training, and she may still be reeling by the secret her business partner finally revealed to her. But nothing can compare to her family's interference, even from far-away Australia. When her mother asks Kylie to check in on "distant" relative Doug "Dingo" O'Rourke, who has landed a TV gig in Los Angeles, Kylie realizes she has no choice. Dingo, though, wants nothing to do with an interfering private investigator, despite the fact that something dreadful is worrying him

"An Aussie outback dyke taking on Hollywood? As Kylie Kendall would say, Stone the crows! Don't miss this intro to the most unconventional, laugh-out-loud private eye in lesbian crime fiction. Claire McNab's always been one of our best, and she's outdone herself with this one." – Katherine V Forrest Crikey! Kiley Kendall is in a whole mess of trouble… Running a pub in the outback town of Wollegudgerie doesn't offer much fun or future for knockabout Aussie dyke Kylie Kendall, so when the father she never knew dies and leaves her 51% of his Los Angeles-based private-eye agency, it's bright lights, big city for America-bound Kylie. Not so happy about her arrival is her father's former business partner, the beautiful, enigmatic Ariana Creeling, who wants to buy Kylie out and gives her a decidedly chilly reception. But the two women soon have other matters to attend to. Dr. Dave Deer, shrink to the stars whose "slap, slap, get on with it" approach has made him a celebrity, hires them to investigate the theft of records and subsequent suicide of a successful but reviled film director. Concerned for his professional reputation, Dr. Deer would much prefer that the death of his former client be revealed to be a murder. Best-selling mystery novelist Claire McNab launches her newest series with a giant bang as the sparks between Arianna and Kylie-and the folks who would like to see them dead-fly in the City of Angels