October Publications

In Deep Water Death: A Luanne Fogarty Mystery by Glynn Marsh Alam (Dive Deep and Deadly), series star Luanne tracks down a missing newborn in backwater Florida. She risks life and limb as she contends with nasty gators and humans. (Avocet/Memento Mori [www.avocetpress.com], $12.95 paper 304p ISBN 0-9705049-1-8)

It's Seattle in the 1940s, and pool-sharks, bookies, jazz musicians, drunken coroners, shady cops and street-smart PIs all jockey for position and try to stay alive. In Rat City: A Jake Rossiter & Miss Jenkins Mystery, Curt Colbert's first novel, Jake narrowly avoids death by shooting dead his assailant, Big Ed; when he tries to find out why Big Ed wanted him dead, Jake discovers a ring of corruption and crime that surprises even him. (UglyTown [www.uglytown.com], $15 paper 368p ISBN 0-9663473-5-8)

Royal Navy officer-turned-privateer Harry Ludlow might get rich capturing French trade ships, an activity sanctioned under the wartime rules of 1793. In David Donachie's first book, The Devil's Own Luck: The Privateersmen Mysteries, Harry's brother James is accused of murder, and they find themselves in trouble with corrupt naval officers as the war rages around them. (McBooks, $23.95 320p ISBN 1-59013-003-0)

Back in Florida, a formidable crime family is trying to frame Bru Bruton for citrus product tampering that could make much of the country fatally ill. In The Near Death Experiment, Edgar-nominee Steve Glassman (Blood on the Moon) entangles Bru in a messy string of crimes, including a secret from his past and several attempts on his life, at the same time that his wife leaves him for his best friend, and a ruthless, drug-addicted heiress tries to seduce him at every turn. (Tropical, $16.95 paper 280p ISBN 0-9666173-7-1)

In Death's Domain: The Sixth Cassidy McCabe Mystery by Alex Matthews (Cat's Claw), psychotherapist Cassidy is forced to face a past trauma (and tell her husband, Zach, about it) when someone starts sending her unsettling e-mails. Cassidy's Internet stalker knows her secret and will use it to deadly ends if Cassidy doesn't act fast to save her own and her husband's life. (Intrigue[www.intriguepress.com], $23.95 320p ISBN 1-890768-37-5)

Lee Barbour, an idealist with a gun who works for a government intelligence agency, travels from a drug-ridden California town to the palaces of Vienna and the secret service—laden Bulgaria in Richard H.A. Blum's The Fat Man Can't Swim. On her third day at her new job, Claire Dubois is sent off to Vienna to be Lee's partner, but when she's immediately kidnapped, Lee's investigation of corrupt politicians and businessmen, as well as career criminals, takes a life-or-death turn. (Creative Arts, $15.95 paper 424p ISBN 0-88739-309-8)

In The Bayou Privilege, Dallari Landry's first book, attorney Micki Lane moves back to Liberty, Tex., where 13 years ago she worked as a forensic chemist on her friend's murder. The old case appears to be connected to several present-day murders, and as Micki helps reinvestigate, she encounters secrets and life-threatening dangers. (Creative Arts, $24.95 222p ISBN 0-88739-356-X)

Gina Cresse (A Deadly Change of Course—Plan B) offers A Deadly Change of Heart, in which series heroine Devonie Lace gets more than she bids for in her new Ford Explorer, obtained at a U.S. Marshal's auction. The unexpected package found in her new car gets Devonie enmeshed in a murder investigation, and her stellar sleuthing skills bring her to the killer's ruthless attention. (Avalon [www.avalonbooks.com], $19.95 192p ISBN 0-8034-9498-X)

September Publications

Alexander McCall Smith (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) offers the second and third installments of his dignified, humorous Botswanan series. In Tears of the Giraffe, PI Precious Ramotswe tracks a missing American man whose widowed mother appeals to Ramotswe; meanwhile, the imperturbable detective is endangered at home by her fiancé's resentful maid. (Columbia Univ./Polygon, $12.95 paper 208p ISBN 0-7486-6273-1) In Morality for Beautiful Girls, Ramotswe tangles with a feral child, the finalists in a beauty pageant and a suspicious cook. ($12.95 paper 236p ISBN —6297-9)

In Jupiter's Daughter: A Katy Klein Mystery, second in the series, Karen Irving (Pluto Rising) subjects her heroine not only to the frosty Ottawa winter, but also to a death at a holiday party. Katy, professional astrologer and amateur sleuth, wants to help the dead woman's traumatized daughter, and ends up uncovering the dangerous misdeeds of a televangelist and a fundamentalist church while the bodies pile up. (Polestar [Advanced Global Distribution, dist.], $9.95 paper 352p ISBN 1-896095-54-2)