June Publications
Mickey Spillane's first three Mike Hammer mysteries—I, the Jury; My Gun Is Quick; and Vengeance Is Mine!—are collected in The Mike Hammer Collection: Volume 1, with an introduction by Shamus Award-winner Max Allan Collins, who finds "[s]omething personal...at the heart of every Spillane novel." Hammer is a foul-mouthed, violent vigilante and a sucker for beautiful damsels in distress, some of whom pull the wool over his eyes. With his trusty, sexy assistant Velda keeping him honest (sort of), he exacts revenge on racketeers, cheats and murderers. (NAL, $15 paper 528p ISBN 0-451-20352-6)
In Howling Bloody Murder, her first book, Sue Owens Wright introduces half-Washoe Indian Elsie "Beanie" MacBean and her basset hound Cruiser. Land disputes at Lake Tahoe between developers and the Washoe turn deadly, and it's up to Beanie to clear a Tribal Elder's name. (Deadly Alibi [PO Box 5947, Vancouver, Wash. 98661], $16.99 184p ISBN 1-886199-12-4)
On the first day of Olivia Wright's new life in Las Vegas, she witnesses the murder of her would-be employer in Lynnette Baughman's (A Spy Within) Thin Disguise: A Mystery. The cop assigned to the case is her big bad ex; together, they follow a trail of lies and betrayal to find the killer and save Olivia's life. (Top [www.toppub.com], $14.95 paper 286p ISBN 1-929976-07-0) In his first novel, The Ambush of My Name, Jeffrey Marks reimagines Ulysses S. Grant's post-war homecoming to Georgetown, Ohio, as a historical mystery. When Grant is met with hostility from many townspeople and with a corpse in his hotel room, he tracks the murderer to find out who wants to make trouble for him in the presidential elections. (Silver Dagger, $23.95 192p ISBN 1-57072-184-X)
Morton Kingsley, apartment manager, is already second-guessing an illicit romantic liaison with a tenant when they find a dead body in her apartment. The tenant promptly flees the scene, leaving Morton to muddle through the inexplicable events and clear his name with the authorities and his wife in J.B. Rivard's Handful of Air. (1stbooks Library [www.1stbooks.com], $15.95 224p ISBN 0-75961-476-8) Dr. Joy Canova's therapy patients are becoming the victims of their worst fears as someone stalks, tortures and kills them. In Faces of Fear, Christine Spindler's (The Rhythm of Revenge) second Inspector Terry mystery, the hero PI must look beyond a possible frame-job. (Avid [www. avidpress.com], $22.95 256p ISBN 1-929613-83-0)
